When GIMP goes wrong (it can be right)

Sometimes you have an image you like the subject of, but due to being a grey day, cloudy or flat lighting with no depth or shadow you end up with a boring photo with limited colour range.

This is where I turn to GIMP and rely on it getting it wrong when trying to fix an image with the “Auto Equalise” option in the “Colour” menu.
The more wrong it is, the more improved you may find the image becomes.
This is subjective however as what you end up with is art rather than photography., and will be very grainy.

Examples:




I am sure you will agree the results are more artistically pleasing than the originals even though they are heavily processed.
The emphasis of the lens in the corners and over saturated shadows and light, have an odd retro look of an old photo where you can see the blotches in the emulsion.
Take the first image for example. Before it was a nice composition and concept that failed, but after processing it immediately looks like it could be a Black Sabbath album cover from the 1970s.

The less range of colours you have in an image, the more wrong GIMP will be as it has less info to work with.
The unpredictable nature of doing this will not appeal to some people, but weighed against deleting an image you can’t do much else with, I think spinning the wheel of fortune is not such a bad idea.

Try it with failed photos of aircraft leaving contrails, and even flat winter scenes that didn’t have enough light.

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I tried Gimp a couple of times in the past - with some time in between both times I installed it. I never really liked that program, personally.

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I never said I like using GIMP, only that it works for this.

For anyone curious I actually use a very unknown package for photo and image editing.
Photogenics HDR was the first 96 bit editing tool, with floating point precision in each channel giving you the ability to paint with the shadows and light in RAW images.
I still use it now, though it shows its age it does what I need.

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Gotta love walking off the beaten path sometime. A gem sometimes just pops up out of nothing. I’m gonna give it a try.

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I dig playing around and experimenting with the AI. Sometimes it’s pleasantly surprising. Nice post

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