[Gimp-user] how to darken bright areas

[paulhurm <forums gimpusers com>]

> You are up against an intrinsically difficult problem; restoring the
> photos to their original condition is not possible, and making them
> "look like" they were restored to original condition would amount to
> using them as guides for creating new images from scratch.  But making
> radical improvements is not especially difficult.
>
> I did the following things with the image you provided:
>
> 1)  Converted it from indexed to RGB mode.  Indexed images do not work
> and play well with filters.
>
> 2)  Saved it to XCF, created a duplicate as a new layer and named it
> "white balance."
>
> Then I had a go at correcting for the overall fading, with the Levels
> tool (Colors > Levels, or add it to your toolbox buttons via Edit >
> Preferences > Toolbox).  The histogram is cut off at both ends, which
> might be an artifact of destructive compression by the scanner or some
> program used to process the image.
>
> I used the draggable markers at the bottom of the Input Levels display
> to set the black point to 50 and the white point to 235.  This has the
> effect of "stretching" the histogram from true black to true white.
> Then I moved the mid-point marker to the right, and settled on 0.45,
> as
> a "natural looking" adjustment.
>
> 3)  Then I created a copy of the corrected layer, and tried a few
> items
> from the G'MIC filter pack.  Repair > Smooth [median], with a radius
> of
> five pixels, knocked the sparkly silver clumps way down with minimal
> degradation of "wanted" image content.
>
> 4)  Then I added a mask to the filtered layer, and painted on it in
> white to bring back some lost resolution in areas with important
> details
> (faces, hands, etc.) and, switching to a smaller brush and black,
> painted on the mask to wipe out some bright specks that were restored
> along with the "wanted" details that were softened by the smoothing
> filter.
>
> 5)  Finally, I created a new layer as a copy of the visible image, set
> its mode to Multiply, and dialed its opacity down to 33%.  This
> brought
> the contrast way up.
>
> Result:  http://pilobilus.net/xfer/p48_TEST_GRAY-EDIT.jpg
>
> There is still room for a LOT of corrections, and someone may come up
> with fundamentally better ideas than the process outlined above.  But
> it's a starting point of a sort, at least.
>
> :o)
>
> Steve



Definitely a good starting point but also reiterates to myself how much of a
learning curve I'm on. At least, though, this does give some ideas to play with.
I had already downloaded GMIC but got a bit overwhelmed when I saw all of the
tools but had no idea what any of them do without testing. This gives me one
suggested starting point though!

I may take some time and dig through the stuff I recovered after my HD crash
with the hopes of finding some notes. I now do recall having at least looked at
GMIC before but can't recall if that was a tool I used before or not.

I still want to go down the path of trying to separate the white spots onto a
transparent background, turn them dark then try some kind of overlay. Don't know
if this idea will work in the end but that thought still haunts me.

Now I "just" have to get a better feel for working with layers and transparency.
I knew from the start that I had / have a steep learning curve but the idea of
getting suggestions to narrow things down is why I posted here.

Definitely still open to other methods or thoughts that anyone might have.

Thanks.

Paul

PS
If you read a previous reply of mine, you might recall that my very original
scans are TrueColor and that the one I posted here has definitely been played
with in other apps and is might not be my best starting point.

Would you suggest going back to my original scan and starting from there?

When I open my original scan in GIMP I get a message to the effect that the
original contains an embedded color profile of "KODAK Srgb" and it asks if I
want to convert the image to the RGB working space (sRGB built-it).

In general what do you think is the best path to take?

Should I then work with that "color" image before converting to BW at the end
(or somewhere) or should I convert to BW (or grey) first???

Thanks.

-- 
paulhurm (via www.gimpusers.com/forums)