GIMP Tutorial – Glamour Portrait Makeover

GIMP Tutorial – Glamour Portrait Makeover

Glamour Portrait Makeover Step 1 Glamour portraiture is really all about flattery. In a glamour image, we alter the reality of someone’s likeness slightly (or not so slightly) to show them off. How far we take the alteration process is often the point of contention. As you will discover in this tutorial, it is really quite simple to alter someone’s physical appearance to the point where they become almost unrecognisable. Certainly, the presence of wrinkles and skin blemishes are the things most people would like toned down or eliminated. But a glamour treatment can also add a certain softness, energy and even mystery to a portrait image. I shot the candid image on the right of my tired and jet-lagged mum during one of her flying visits. And with only a couple of minutes worth of post-processing, I can probably remove close to 20 years from her looks, and add a new sense youth and vitality to her photo.

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Step 2 Select Dialogs>Layers (Ctrl+L) from the Image menu to open the Layers dialog. From the Layers dialog toolbar, click on the Duplicate Layer button to duplicate the background layer. Change the blend Mode of the Background Copy layer to Screen. TIP: Try the Overlay or Soft Light blend modes as alternatives to Screen blending.

The result so far has only served to flatten the contrast, blow out some of the highlights and key up the mid tones. Don't worry, we'll adjust the final levels towards the end of the tutorial and restore some colour balance back to the image.

Duplicate Layer button

Blend mode to Screen

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Step 3 With the Background Copy layer still selected, choose Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur from the Image menu to open the Gaussian Blur dialog. Adjust the Blur Radius to a fairly aggressive value. I chose 70.0 px in this example. Use IIR as the Blur Method (RLE – Run Length Encoding, is generally reserved for computer generated graphics, not photographic tones). Click the OK button when you are done.

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Step 4 Note how the image has now taken on that soft, dreamy look you often associate with glamour portraits. However, the effect has also caused the eyes to go a bit hazy, and hazy eyes are not very desirable in a portrait. Choose Layer>Mask>Add Layer Mask from the Image menu to open the Add Layer Mask dialog. Initialise the mask to White (full opacity) as shown below.

Set mask to White

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Step 5 Click on the Foreground colour swatch (large black rectangle in the lower left of the dialog) from The GIMP toolbox to open the Change Foreground Color dialog below.

Set the V (value) slider to about 80 for a pale grey colour. Then click on the OK button to set the new foreground colour.

Set Value to 80

Foreground Colour

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Step 6 Select the Paintbrush tool from the GIMP Toolbox. In the Tool Options for the Paintbrush, set the Brush to Circle (19) and leave the Scale to 1.00 as shown below.

Paintbrush tool

Brush Scale

Choose a hard-edged brush

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Step 7 Zoom in on the image to at least 200% and centre the eyes in the Image window. Then using the Paintbrush tool, carefully paint over the eye and lashes to partially reveal the underlying image. Be careful not to stray too far outside the eye when painting, as it is only the eyeball that we want to reveal. Repeat the process for the other eye.

Paint over the eyeball and on the inner part of eyelid only

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Step 8 Choose Filters>Re-show “Gaussian Blur” from the Image menu to re-open the Gaussian Blur dialog. Change the Blur Radius to 20 pixels as shown on the right. Then click the OK button to blur the Layer Mask and give the eyes better clarity.

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Step 9 Our next task will be to remove the wrinkles in order to reclaim some of her youth. Select the Background layer in the Layers dialog (because that’s where the wrinkles are). Then choose the Healing Brush tool from The GIMP toolbox. And set the Tool Options as shown below centre.

Healing brush

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Step 10 Zoom in to 100% to register the detail at full size. Then Ctrl+click on a smooth area of skin to set the source point, and begin painting the smooth texture over the wrinkles. You should be able to easily achieve the result shown below.

Destination

Source

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Step 11 Once you are finished with the wrinkle removal, choose Colors>Curves… from the Image menu to open the Curves dialog. Drop the mid-tone levels down by about one grid spacing to bring back some colour density in the image. Click the OK button to apply the curves adjustment.

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Finally, choose Image>Flatten Image from the Image menu to reduce the picture to one layer for saving as a JPEG.

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Copyright © 2008, Greg Perry

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GIMP Tutorial – Glamour Portrait Makeover