Tutorial: Beautiful Parrot Photo Manipulation in Gimp

starlight86 – Fri, 01/16/2009 - 16:34

Photo Manipulation

This tutorial will describe how to make a colorful photo manipulation using a parrot picture, two flower stock photos and two texture background. You’ll see it’s not that hard to create a simple photo manipulation with effective color and using some texture. I hope you like this one and let me know guys what do you think.

Before we get started, let's take a look at the image we'll be creating.

Full View

Step 1

Cut image.

For this project I will use a parrot picture from elenulin at DeviantArt. You can find more parrot picture HERE.

Using the Paths Tool, you need to create a path around the parrot. Later we will convert this path to selection.

After creating the path with the shape of the parrot, go to the Select > From Path.

You will see the selection .

After that go to Edit> Paste, and paste it as New image

save it as parrot.png

Then we will need some flower stock.Download it HERE and HERE. Once again cut it using paths tool like the previous step and save it as .png too.

Step 2

Download the Oldpapers textures from texturebits, and place the paper in your document.Rotate the texture.

Select the parrot.png and drag it into a the document and make it a little bit smaller.(Make sure u tick the keep aspect box.)

Step 3

Lets increase the contrast of our parrot, go to Image>Settings>Brightness/Contrast.
I will use Brightness 7, and Contrast 28.

Step 4

Duplicate our parrot layer.Then go to Filter>Artistic>Cartoon, 40px for Mask Radius, and 0 for the Percent Black.Change the layer mode to Overlay.

Step 5

Using Watercolour Brush. We need the Bittbox Watercolor Brushes 2 that you can download at this link.

So, let's select the Brush Tool and red (#ff2b01) for the color.

Create more layers and paint each layer with different colors.I Use yellows (#ffe401), blue (#03c7f8), orange(#f97912), dark blue(#065cb5) and greens(#9dae0a) and different blend modes as well.

Create more layers and paint each layer with different colors.I Use yellows (#ffe401), blue (#03c7f8), orange(#f97912), dark blue() and greens(#9dae0a) and different blend modes as well.

Try to reproduce the image below. Use the image below as a reference.

Step 6

Adding Flower Element

Let's add the flower to the design.Drag the flower picture to the document. Select the layer of the flower and go to Color Balance.
adjust the range of the midtones.

Step 7

I'll add another flower to the design.

Step 8

Here I used another brush. I used ornament brush from MagicalViper at Deviantart.Create a new layer. This layer has to be beneath the parrot picture and start painting.

Step 9

Download the Bleeding Dragon Oldpaperstextures.

At this point, our image needs a little texture, so I added in another paper texture on Burn at 20% Opacity.
(note: You can add more than one.They are not completely discernible, but a slight texture is usually good for an image.)

Step 10

Now add some light effect to the design. Create a new layer and fill it with black. I named the layer as light effect and put Go to Filters > Light and Shadows> Lighting effects.
I Use the 0.7 for the distance. Change the layer mode to Overlay.

Step 11

Right click at the any layer and Flatten the image. Then, select the entire canvas (Select > All ) and and copy it (Select > Copy ).
Go back a few steps ( Ctrl+Z), right before merging all the layers.

Step 12

Go to Edit> Paste as> Paste as new layer.Paste the flattened image, make sure it is on the top of other layer and change the layer mode to Overlay
and low the opacity to 60%.

Final Result

You can view the final image below or view a larger version here.

Full View

Thanks for reading this tutorial. Have a great day!

I've made several Gimp tutorial before this and you can check it out at my blog. Click HERE.

I also included the Xcf file.

Click here to download the Xcf file used for this tutorial

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128301 reads

Very nice starlight!.

Submitted by Gimper on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 16:48

Very nice starlight!. probably the longest and coolest GIMP tutorial online :)

Lovely Tutorial there.. and

Submitted by Gimp Tutorials (not verified) on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 17:10

Lovely Tutorial there.. and the end effect has come really good.. :)

Awesome..

Submitted by Salmen (not verified) on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 23:30

Awesome..

This is GREAT Starlight! Keep

Submitted by Starlight is my Hero! (not verified) on Sat, 01/17/2009 - 18:51

This is GREAT Starlight!
Keep up the good work man!

thx you for the comment :)

Submitted by starlight86 on Sun, 01/18/2009 - 00:40

thx you for the comment :)

WOW ace manipulation, awesome

Submitted by ajit on Sun, 01/18/2009 - 10:54

WOW

ace manipulation, awesome tutorial, great detail, love the result!

Totally loving this site, I'm

Submitted by mrweekender on Sun, 01/25/2009 - 06:17

Totally loving this site, I'm so glad people like you are using GIMP in a serious way and passing your experience on. I've been looking to give Adobe the finger for a while now due to the ridiculous cost of Photoshop and I think you may have just convinced me that GIMP is good enough for my needs. Top job!

Awesome! Well explained, many

Submitted by Hevis (not verified) on Mon, 01/26/2009 - 22:06

Awesome! Well explained, many pictures and a beautiful & colourful outcome! There was a solution for a lightning problem i've been trying to solve for a some time now aswell ;).

Awesome! Very well explained

Submitted by bernsky on Tue, 01/27/2009 - 17:28

Awesome! Very well explained and illustrated.

Thanks!

Here's my version with added layer mask:
http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu45/bernsky_bucket/parrotmanipulatio...

nice tut ;)

Submitted by alfonz (not verified) on Fri, 02/06/2009 - 00:03

nice tut ;)

That was beautiful. I have

Submitted by Hunting Videos (not verified) on Fri, 02/06/2009 - 15:50

That was beautiful. I have always shied away from GIMP because I thought it was a little harder to use. I think I will give it another shot.

Thanks!

How do you get the watercolor

Submitted by Yvonne (not verified) on Mon, 02/09/2009 - 17:50

How do you get the watercolor brushes to work?
I tried just putting the png files in the brushes folder but it didn't do anything.
Please help!

just got it working nvm

Submitted by Yvonne (not verified) on Mon, 02/09/2009 - 17:55

just got it working nvm

As Yvonne, I don't find how

Submitted by pierrO (not verified) on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 05:38

As Yvonne, I don't find how to convert the PNG source files in a GBR format. In fact, I know how to convert, but my brush still have a dark color. If I check "use color from gradient" I can have a gradient colored brush, but it is not a beautiful solution.

I use gimp 2.4.5 on a kubuntu 8.04.2.
I downloaded the "Everyone Else - PNG Source Files", unzip it, resize each files to a 33x125 image (with ImageMagick) and save as *.gbr format in a directory. I put this one in the path where gimp look for brushes, and refresh the brush catalog.

Could you help me
Thank you

hello pierro, please download

Submitted by starlight86 on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 06:53

hello pierro, please download the Photoshop watercolor brush..( not the Everyone Else - PNG Source Files ) ..then put them in gimp folder.restart gimp.you can used the photoshop brush as Gimp can read abr file..

p/s: this is advantage of Gimp because it can used photoshop brush meanwhile photoshop can't used Gimp brush

i hope this will help you..

Thank you very much

Submitted by pierrO (not verified) on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 08:05

Thank you very much starlight86. So it is very easy. But as this brushes are very big I give you the solution I have founded.
The image you use to make a brushes, must be in a grayscale with no transparency. To do that open the png, add a blank layer at the bottom of your layers, flatten the image [Layer menu]->flatten image, go in [image]Image->mode->Grayscale. Save as a *.gbr file in your brushes directory.

Have fun

Thank you for your

Submitted by gimpTR (not verified) on Tue, 03/03/2009 - 23:24

Thank you for your tutorials.
The Tutorails is video in my Hompage.

Good watch..

This is best gimp sig

Submitted by acac (not verified) on Wed, 03/25/2009 - 06:01

This is best gimp sig tutorial online...very nice outcome

I have been able to access

Submitted by Bruce Raynor (not verified) on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 10:32

I have been able to access the Intelligent cutters with an image opwn but not the path tool. When I access the toobox I jump from the page on which my image is to a new page onto which I cannot paste or access an image directly. I am either missing how to view a layer from this page or how to view and selct from toobox on my original image page... or maybe I am missing brain cells. I have spent hours trying to do this sort of basic manipulation and can't get it to work smoothly.
Thanks for doing this

HELP !!!! GIMP brush

Submitted by Bex - Newbie (not verified) on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 02:25

HELP !!!!

GIMP brush message

unsupported brush format

GIMP message

Opening 'C:\Users\xxBECKYxx\Documents\thing\BB_Watercolor_II_CS.GBR' failed:

GIMP brush plug-In could not open image

^ thats the message thats coming up
and i think i changed the file type but i am not sure if i did it right

i right clicked the file and went to properties and where is said abr (or something along those lines) i changed it to .GBR

any help please ???

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Tutorial: Beautiful Parrot Photo Manipulation in Gimp

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