[Gimp-user] how to darken bright areas

[paulhurm <forums gimpusers com>]

Here are some notes for someone's possible future use about what I did here.

My original scans are True Color and usually 600 dpi. When I open them with GIMP
I am first prompted that they have an "embedded color profile KODAK Srgb" and I
am asked if I want to convert to "RGB working space". I select "Convert".

For the example scan in this post I did the following:

Image
Mode
Grayscale

Filters
G'MIC
Details
Dynamic range increase
Recover highlights set to 1.0
OK

Filters
G'MIC
Repair
Despeckle
Tolerance 15
Max area 10
OK

I have tested a few of my other scans and as would be expected, each of my photo
scans takes a slightly differect process from the above and with different
settings.

I have found that many of my other scans will not need to be Despeckled. If I do
play with Despeckle I have to be very careful of the settings. I have found that
in some cases I can lose details that I don't want to such as bright reflections
off of posts, faces etc., things that I really want to keep. I have found that
setting the Tolerance rather high will help with catching many "true" speckles
without losing too many wanted reflections.

Again, the above is meant to be a reference to what I did with this example for
someone's possible future use. This was a rather extreme example that I needed
suggestions with. As would be expected, each photo will take some differences in
process and settings. Bottom line though I have found that the G'MIC - Details
utility seems to be a good starting point.

I hope this helps others in the future.

Paul

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