Fun with light

Average: 3.9 (167 votes)
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In this GIMP tutorial we will transform this stock bulb photo into a switched on 2watt? light bulb :).

Getting started

Before we start this tutorial, your going to need the Light bulb stock photo I found off sxc.hu But I already cut it out so you can download it here.

Step 1

Open a new 1024x768 image. Grab the Blend tool, change your foreground color to 73aeff and background to black. then in the tools options set your Gradient to FG-BG(RGB) and shape to Radial.

Now apply the blend tool from top center to the bottom of your canvas to get a nice radial background *tip hold down CTRL to get a straight line when applying.

Step 2

Next insertour bulb photo into our image. as you can see the bulb looks totally wrong thats because it should be transparent right?

Will fix that by changing the blend mode to Multiply, and then duplicating the layer and setting the mode to Soft light giving it better detail.

Step 3

Now will need to modify the "Tungsten filament" wire (got that from wikipedia) to a switched one, will use the path tool for that. Create a new layer, grab the path tool and go over the wire by applying points along its length.

Step 4

Next change your foreground colour to Yellow fcff02. then go to the brush tab and select "Circle fuzzy (19) brush. then go to your path tab or dialog and right click on your path and in the menu click on Stroke path, in the stroke path window select "Stroke with a paint tool".

You should have something like this

Step 5

Change your foreground colour to white and in the Tools options change your gradient to FG to Transparent, and shape to radial.

Create a new layer make sure its transparent, and apply the blend tool from the wire to lower bottom of the bulb.

Set the layer to overlay and you should have the same out come as mine.

Step 6

Its still not bright right?. no problem, Grab the Ellipse Select tool and draw an oval shape in the top centre of the bulb.

Create a new layer, go to Select>feather set it at 150, then go and grab the bucket tool and fill the selection with solid white. finally set the layer mode to Overlay

Step 7

The light still needs adjusting, will use the Free select tool, but first adjust feather edges to 100 in the tools options and then grab the Free select tool and draw around the bulb.

Create a new layer.grab the paint bucket and with your Foreground color set to white apply it over

Step 8

Now will add a little flare effect to our light, first create a new layer, fill it with black then go to Filters>Light and Shadow>Gradient Flare.

inside the Selector tab select Hidden_Planet then go to the Settings tab change the position to X:504 Y:248 and Radius:314.4.

Covert the image to Black & white by going to Color>Desatruate, and select lightness.

Step 9

Change the layer mode to Addition and opacity to 31. that's it!

You could add some more creativity into this and the possibilities are almost endless :)

XCF file is attached below as always.

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pienose's picture

Re: Fun with light

cool, nice to see something original!

Aj1t1's picture

Re: Fun with light

what on earth happened to gimer.net!!!!

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

thanks pienose :)

lolzlolz's picture

nice, ill try it at

nice,
ill try it at home,
ive noticed uve been using a lot of stroke to path in your recent tutorials, it can generate some very nice effects :P, good job

amy's picture

Re: Fun with light

the link to download the light bulb picture doesn't work and when you import it onto the background it's got a big white bit around it that i can't get rid of
:(

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

its back online now

tux7000's picture

Re: Fun with light

I'm very happy to see a nice and well done tutorial like this. Good job Gimper!

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

appreciate the nice comment :)

Mosselman's picture

Re: Fun with light

Very nicely done, great inspiration.

The whole site is full of very useful tips and tricks.

I have been switching to GIMP for 2 days now from Paint Shop Pro.I refuse to use Photoshop because I think its too expensive, not that that would be a problem on today's internet, but if you want to make professional designs you shouldnt be caught using illegal software. You have proven GIMP to be a worthy alternative.

Thanks to your website and yours alone I have been able to get the hang of the gimp.

Thank you.

Quadro's picture

Re: Fun with light

Hi! I stopped at step 2. I cant insert bulb in my New Layer. I have downloaded bulb from here http://www.sxc.hu/photo/839958. But it have size bigger than 1024*768 and overflow my image. In addition, i cant cut only bulb from this photo...and bulb goes to my picture with white background. Please, help me! :)....and sorry for my bad English.

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

i already posted the link to the cut out bulb but it seems you missed it. here it is http://gimp-tutorials.net/tutorials/turn_on/bulb.zip

Quadro's picture

Re: Fun with light

I already downloaded this archive with .xcf file inside... but i want to know how i can cut out bulb from this image (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/839958) by myself...or this question is outside the scope of this tutorial?

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

look inside the video tutorial on how to cut things out of images

Visitor's picture

Re: Fun with light

In part 6 when i poured the paint the area in the circle became pure white and i had in what ypu said..and i can't make the flare colorless.

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

make sure the layer mode is set to Overlay
for the flare follow the step "Color>Desatruate, and select lightness"

Bumbeak's picture

Re: Fun with light

When I make a path on the somethingamajig string and attempt to stroke it, it looks like a different type of yellow. My opacity is 100, I'm using Circle Fuzzy (19) and it's scaled at 1.12, and I'm using fcff02.

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

make sure you have the layer ordering correct, if you wan't more help post a screenshot in the forum section for us to see.

andotyjazz's picture

Thanks Gimper. Great

Thanks Gimper. Great original GIMP tutorial. BTW, I've demo(ed) this tutorial on a http://angpilipinogimp.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/ang-pilipino-gimp-mad we recently had conducted.

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

your welcome, comments like these help keep me making these tutorials :)

Visitor's picture

Re: Fun with light

I love you. Marry me?

Visitor's picture

Re: Fun with light

Uhmm. How do we change Blend mode to multiply Btw i get confused Easily with gimp XD im only 8 yrs old D: so how u change it from blend mode to multiply

Visitor's picture

Re: Fun with light

Oh nevermind forget about my comment xD i finaly figured it out

Belo's picture

Excellent!!! Wow .. this is

Excellent!!!
Wow .. this is so amazing!!

Hi Gimper, I am learning GIMP, and these lovely tutorials are really helping me learn :-)
Please keep on posting such easy and very effective to learn tuts.

Thank you
Belo

SweetOblivion's picture

Wow, I love this tutorial! I

Wow, I love this tutorial!
I had some difficult because I had to translate it in italian and I didn't know some technical words, but I understood them with the pictures.
Here my outcome, what do yuou think? --> http://i38.tinypic.com/vrsf0o.png

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

nice work SweetOblivion, perfect outcome.

SweetOblivion's picture

Re: Fun with light

Thankyou, I'm glad**

Digital's picture

Re: Fun with light

Wow! Thats awesome! Its great work. ;-)

JC's picture

Re: Step 2 How are we to

Re: Step 2
How are we to insert the light bulb?

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

simply drag the photo into you're canvas.

Visitor's picture

Re: Fun with light

Dear Gimper, I got stuck in step one. Using Blend (from Tools) and Gradient (from Dialogue), I could only get the image 'blended' but without the important 'radial' effect because I could not find 'Shape-radial', as shown in your tutorial, in either the Blend or the Gradiant dialogue box. I am using Gimp 2.4. Is it a different version from yours?

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

Hi, Did you check the image in step 1? notice the Shape dropdown option..

you can see it in this image http://gimp-tutorials.net/tutorials/turn_on/1.jpg

Visitor's picture

Re: Re: Fun with light

Thanks Gimper, I finally found it after more careful searching. Its different from your dropdown menu, but 'Shape-radial' is there. Guess thats a common problem with different versions of Gimp - menus are differently located and designed. I think now I can proceed with your wonderful tutorial - thanks a lot !

Gimper's picture

Re: Fun with light

Glad you got it worked out.

Thor486's picture

I took the inspiration from

I took the inspiration from this tutorial to create my wallpaper.

Please let me know what do you think about it :D

http://img384.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lightxv7.jpg

GBass's picture

nice tut - well done ... but

nice tut - well done ... but I can't find the .xcf file :(

Insane's picture

This is what you call

5

This is what you call creative

deepblue's picture

Changing layer modes. I

Changing layer modes. I simply can't do it. I've got gimp 2.6.1, and i don't know how to change the layer mode. I've looked under the layers toolbar, images, tools..everything! Do i need a different version to do this? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! =)

Gimper's picture

deepblue I've replied to your

deepblue I've replied to your question in the other tutorial.. otherwise email me and i'll explain how to find it.

Ben K's picture

Very good and nice creation.

3

Very good and nice creation.

Ben K's picture

Very good and nice creation.

3

Very good and nice creation.

schrottplatz's picture

i think its one of the best

5

i think its one of the best tut ever! thx gimper!

rainbow dash's picture

Where it that overlay tool

Where it that overlay tool thing? I can't find it.

Visitor's picture

It's magic!

4

It's magic!

seeker's picture

Nice, I´ll try it. Thanks

Nice, I´ll try it.
Thanks

lennart's picture

why dont you add transparency

why dont you add transparency to the bulb with "color to transparency" tool?

Visitor's picture

Good work! Your post/article

Good work! Your post/article is an excellent example of why I keep comming back to read your excellent quality content that is forever updated.

Thank you! - tekne turu

TeachceT's picture

I've looked all over the very

I've looked all over the very well done tutorial and have not found the xcf file. Could I get a copy of it?
Thanks in advance for any help.

Gimper's picture

Only members can see the .xcf

Only members can see the .xcf files.

vijaydude's picture

Great tut, i love it :-)

4

Great tut, i love it :-)

Sadia's picture

Whenever i am at the end and

Whenever i am at the end and i am finished it always says
"GIMP MESSAGE
Saving 'C:\Users\owner\AppData\Local\Temp\Rar$DI01.568\Bulb.jpeg' failed:

Could not open 'C:\Users\owner\AppData\Local\Temp\Rar$DI01.568\Bulb.jpeg' for writing: Permission denied"

I keep doing it over and over, it always says the samething =[ i tried to change the format to xcf and jpeg but still, it still stays the same, i use Winrar by the way, so i don't know what's going on, please help me!

Kirstennnn's picture

Nice tutorial :) I added

Nice tutorial :)

I added background to mine,

http://i789.photobucket.com/albums/yy178/devoting/Untitled.png

x

Visitor's picture

This is a great tutorial, but

This is a great tutorial, but for some reason i keep getting messed up on step 2, it sounds easy enough, but mine keeps turning out way to dark compared to all the others I've seen, I'm not quit sure what I am doing wrong, but its mixing me up when it says,

"changing the blend mode to Multiply, and then duplicating the layer and setting the mode to Soft light giving it better detail"

I change the mode to multiply do a blend over the bulb, then duplicate and set the layer to soft light and it just comes out way to dark....if anyone could offer some feed back that would be great =]

Declan Land's picture

Cheers for that - just like

5

Cheers for that - just like to add:

You have MASSIVE SQL Injection Vulnerabilities - I'd get them sorted if I were you.
Many Thanks,
Dec

dhenz82's picture

nice :)

nice :)

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