Desaturating Images: Creating Beautiful B&W Photos
Step One:
Open up your image in gimp.
Open up your image in gimp.
Step Two:
Go to Colors>Hue-Saturation. A box will appear, turn the saturation level down to -100. This will take away all color in your image.
Go to Colors>Hue-Saturation. A box will appear, turn the saturation level down to -100. This will take away all color in your image.
Step Three:
Now that the color is gone it's time to play with the contrast and brightness. Go to colors>Brightness-Contrast. Once this is open play around with the two options until your image starts to pop. Depending on the look you are going for, the settings for this can vary. If you are going for an old film type look you're not going to want very high contrast. If you want your B&W to be very vibrant; try turning up the contrast until the blacks are at there darkest. Depending on the image sometimes doing this will cause the highlights to distort, so watch out for this happening and pay attention to the overall look of the image
Now that the color is gone it's time to play with the contrast and brightness. Go to colors>Brightness-Contrast. Once this is open play around with the two options until your image starts to pop. Depending on the look you are going for, the settings for this can vary. If you are going for an old film type look you're not going to want very high contrast. If you want your B&W to be very vibrant; try turning up the contrast until the blacks are at there darkest. Depending on the image sometimes doing this will cause the highlights to distort, so watch out for this happening and pay attention to the overall look of the image