JakeScaltreto.com

December 14th, 2006 by Jake Scaltreto

Wow, it's been over two months since I've posted anything here. My apologies, I've been remiss in my duties to the masses. First, a small update on what I've been up to lately. For the past month - well more than that now - I've been in Emeryville, California (Across the bay from San Francisco). The company I work for acquired a company out here last year and I've been sent out here to help ease the integration of the computing environment. Unfortunately for me, a the majority of the work out here has been Windows related - and not all that interesting at that. Mostly I'm doing things like installing software, configuring accounts for users, and coming up with novel solutions to problems as they arise. I could also be out here until March of next year, which I'm not particularly siked about.

Despite the majority of the work out here being Windows related, I've been sneaking bits of Linux in there when I can. My laptop at my hotel is running Ubuntu, so I get to play around in the evenings.

In addition to being a god of all things Linux, I'm also an amateur photographer (see link on right). As a photographer, I'm always looking for ways to improve my photographs to make them appear cleaner, richer, and more pleasing to the eye. The number one tool in a digital photographers arsenal is Adobe Photoshop. Famous for having the ability to create "hilarious" image manipulations for the likes of Fark.com, few realize that the original purpose of Photoshop is - in fact - to do photo touch up.

As previously stated, Photoshop is a very important tool for the digital photographer. In my eyes, there are two major drawbacks to Photoshop. For one, it's incredibly expensive. And rightly so, considering everything you can do with it. It's priced to appeal to professionals, but the amateur photographer doesn't always have the resources to shell out that kind of cash and often ends up with the watered down version, Photoshop Elements.

The second drawback to Photoshop is really important to me: it's Windows only. Yes, I've heard of folks successfully running it in Wine, but that's not ideal. So, begin the quest for a replacement. Well, you don't have to look to far before you come across the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). The GIMP is a fully featured photo editing program - that's free. Although not a clone of Photoshop by any means, the GIMP does share a lot of functionality with it's closed source cousin.

The first time I ever tried to use the GIMP I was a bit intimidated. Being a veteran Photoshop user, the new interface seemed confusing and unintuitive - but so do many things the first time you use them. My first few creations with the GIMP were admittedly sub-par, but as I got a hang of using the interface and hot keys I became better and better at using the program.

The other night, I came across a tutorial on creating "Airbrushed" style portraits. I thought it was pretty neat, and could come in handy (especially if I ever get a job in the art department at Maxim ). However, the tutorial was written for Photoshop. Despite what many have said, I firmly believe that the GIMP if capable of doing anything Photoshop can. As such, I began the process of translating the tutorial to GIMP. Later on I plan to make a complete tutorial including screenshots, but for now I'll just show you the results.

First, the original image as it appeared in the tutorial. I chose to do the same image, so that a proper comparison can be made between the GIMP results and the Photoshop results.

She's a very pretty girl as-is, and doesn't really need any airbrushing in my opinion. But let's pretend this is for a spread in FHM. The author of the original tutorial ended up with the following image:

Not a bad result. And, so, I set out to achieve a similar result using tools available in the GIMP. Here is the result of my quest:

As you'll notice, my image and the tutorial image do differ, but the effect is the same. The difference is more the result of fine tuning and adjustment on my part. I actually prefer my version to the one in the tutorial - the skin toes are richer - but stuff like that can be adjusted to preference.

Just for kicks, I applied the same procedure I used with the photo above to a picture I had taken of my friend Mairead some time ago. I feel the results improved the photo greatly, but judge for yourself:

And the touched up version:

I feel the changes give the photo a lot more depth and bring out her features more.

So there you have it, the "proof of concept", if you will. Again, in the near future I'll work on a tutorial outlining the process I followed to create the pictures. Until next time, be seeing you.