Post by Michelle on Aug 1, 2008 16:43:10 GMT -5
A GIMP Tutorial by Megan, C&H Ranch
Seeing as there's often a shortage of black horse pictures that we find suitable for our needs, I decided to play around with GIMP and try to make a bay horse turn passably black. It took a few steps, but I think I introduced the right amount of red and such so that it doesn't look like a grayscale bay. Anyway, what do you guys think? Does it work?
The bay is my RS stallion Ziyad Waseem S++++, a HOF Prince Of Perfection CH++++ son. I think these pics might be big.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Oh I knew someone was going to ask that. I've forgotten, lol! I did kind of trail and error until I got it, but I'm going to go back and write it step by step for you guys. This is GIMP, too, so some paths might be different in something else.
- Open picture and duplicate the background layer. It's important to keep that background layer free of any messing with. You can name the background copy later to anything you want. I used "black horse."
- Make a new layer and fill it with white. Stick it in between your background layer and your background copy.
- Select the background copy layer and use the color region tool to select all the background colors one by one (like mine was the sky, it was best to just use the color region tool) and delete them (cut). If you have a multiple background color thing, you can use the eraser tool.
- Go to Layer > Colors > Desaturate. This should turn your horsie black. But it's a fake looking black, like a dark dark iron grey horse or something.
- Go to Layer > Colors > Colorize. Adjust the top bar (hue) all the way to the end, which is 360. Then adjust the saturation and the lightness to where it looks good.
Saturation: too far the the right and the horse looks really reddish. Too far to the left and the horse is way black. For the one above my number was like 18. I still wanted a little red to show through because it will only look like a grayscale horse if you don't.
Lightness: too far to the right and it's REALLY light. Too far to the left and it's REALLY dark. Mine ended up being about 12.
- Delete your white middle layer.
- Using the eraser tool (adjust the size as needed) and still working in the background copy layer or whatever you named it, erase the eye, the parts of the mane that have the background layer showing through, which is another reason why I used a bay, you know, black mane already (basically you'll need the color to come through if you want it realisitic), parts of the bridle that are colored (like the gold ring on the horse's halter), etc.
If you want to see what I mean about erasing the horse's mane parts and how important it is, compare the above black horse's forelock to his mane below his neck. I fudged on the forelock. See how it's unnaturally thick and you can't really see much of the individual strands? If you want further comparison, look at the bay's forelock and then the black's.
- Flatten the image and save.
That's pretty much it. There's probably a better way to do it, lol.
Seeing as there's often a shortage of black horse pictures that we find suitable for our needs, I decided to play around with GIMP and try to make a bay horse turn passably black. It took a few steps, but I think I introduced the right amount of red and such so that it doesn't look like a grayscale bay. Anyway, what do you guys think? Does it work?
The bay is my RS stallion Ziyad Waseem S++++, a HOF Prince Of Perfection CH++++ son. I think these pics might be big.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Oh I knew someone was going to ask that. I've forgotten, lol! I did kind of trail and error until I got it, but I'm going to go back and write it step by step for you guys. This is GIMP, too, so some paths might be different in something else.
- Open picture and duplicate the background layer. It's important to keep that background layer free of any messing with. You can name the background copy later to anything you want. I used "black horse."
- Make a new layer and fill it with white. Stick it in between your background layer and your background copy.
- Select the background copy layer and use the color region tool to select all the background colors one by one (like mine was the sky, it was best to just use the color region tool) and delete them (cut). If you have a multiple background color thing, you can use the eraser tool.
- Go to Layer > Colors > Desaturate. This should turn your horsie black. But it's a fake looking black, like a dark dark iron grey horse or something.
- Go to Layer > Colors > Colorize. Adjust the top bar (hue) all the way to the end, which is 360. Then adjust the saturation and the lightness to where it looks good.
Saturation: too far the the right and the horse looks really reddish. Too far to the left and the horse is way black. For the one above my number was like 18. I still wanted a little red to show through because it will only look like a grayscale horse if you don't.
Lightness: too far to the right and it's REALLY light. Too far to the left and it's REALLY dark. Mine ended up being about 12.
- Delete your white middle layer.
- Using the eraser tool (adjust the size as needed) and still working in the background copy layer or whatever you named it, erase the eye, the parts of the mane that have the background layer showing through, which is another reason why I used a bay, you know, black mane already (basically you'll need the color to come through if you want it realisitic), parts of the bridle that are colored (like the gold ring on the horse's halter), etc.
If you want to see what I mean about erasing the horse's mane parts and how important it is, compare the above black horse's forelock to his mane below his neck. I fudged on the forelock. See how it's unnaturally thick and you can't really see much of the individual strands? If you want further comparison, look at the bay's forelock and then the black's.
- Flatten the image and save.
That's pretty much it. There's probably a better way to do it, lol.
