What if you could make your ordinary digital photos extraordinary? Whether you want to use your photos on a website or just as your desktop wallpaper at home, you can easily learn how to make your photos pop. It takes just a few simple techniques to remove a photo’s subject from a distracting background and really let it shine. With this tutorial, I will show you how easy it is to remove a photo’s background using the free photo editor GIMP. (Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.)

To get the best results from these techniques, choose your photo carefully. Pick a photo with a compelling subject that would really shine on a plain background. Especially for your first efforts, choose photos with contrasting backgrounds and smooth outlines. Difficult photos would be closeups of pets where individual hairs would have to be painstakingly detailed, or photos of foliage where hundreds of individual leaf points will have to be cut out.

1. After choosing your photo and opening it in GIMP, take a look at the workspace. The menus, currently on the right, can be dragged anywhere on your screen, and the photo window can be resized as needed. (Click on the photo to enlarge it.)

2. Begin by adjusting the image view so you can see the entire photo on your screen.

3. Select the Magic Wand tool (circled) from the menus.

4. Click, or press Shift and click, to select large areas of similar colors with the Magic Wand. Click along the outside edge of your color as well. If you select something accidentally, use Control Z to undo your last selection. When finished, your photo should look something like this.

5. Next, select the Quick Mask in the lower left corner.

6. The Quick Mask is a red layer that allows you to select more precisely. It can be toggled off and on again by click the button shown above.

7. Select your tools for the next task. First, click on the Brush tool at #1. Next, switch the foreground color to white by clicking the arrow in the circle at #2. Then, click the circle next to the word Brush to choose your Brush size, at #3.

8. Use a large brush size to “erase” the red mask from the area you wish to select.

9. Switch to a smaller brush size to do the details on the outside edge. You may want to switch to a larger view, such as 400%.

10. Using the Brush to select the object is the most time-consuming part. With some practice, you will become faster and more accurate. If you erase too much, use Control Z to undo, or switch the Foreground back to black (as in #2 of Step 7). This will let you paint the red mask back onto anything you’ve accidentally uncovered. When you think you have everything selected, switch back to 100% to check your work. It should look something like this.

11. Now toggle the Quick Mask off again (as in Step 5) and check your work. If you see any shimmering spots in the middle of the area you wanted to select, just toggle the Quick Mask again, make sure your Foreground is white (see #2 of Step 7), and brush over the area. Toggle the Quick Mask off again.

12. When you’re happy with your selection, go to the Select menu at the top of the photo window and choose To Path. This is a little insurance in case you make a mistake later.

13. Now go to the Select menu again and choose Invert. It may not look different, but this command selects all the background behind your object.

14. Choose your tools for the next steps. Click on the Fill tool at #1. Double-clicking on the Foreground color at #2 will let you choose another color. Make sure FG color fill is selected at #3.

15. With the Fill tool selected, click in the background of your photo to paint with the Foreground color you picked.

16. If everything looks right, go to the Select menu and choose None.

17. If you see some mistakes after you remove the selection, never fear. Remember the insurance we took out in Step 12? If you want your selection back because you noticed you have something extra attached to the part of the photo you want, go to the Select menu and choose From Path. Your object is now selected again, so you can toggle the Quick Mask and erase anything that shouldn’t be there. If you need to undo further, go to the Edit menu and choose Undo History. This will let you choose how far to undo.

18. I haven’t mentioned saving yet. If you want to be able to use the Path you saved later, be sure to save using the .xcf format. If you also want to put your photo online or print it out, then save it as a .jpg too. If you want to adjust your photo now, you have options in the various menus in the photo window. You can go to the Image menu and choose Scale Image to resize your photo. You can go to the Tools menu, then Transform Tools to Crop your photo.

I hope this tutorial has been useful and enjoyable. GIMP has many more features to explore, and there are many ways to expand on even these simple techniques. Please leave a comment or contact me if you have any questions. I am still learning myself, but I’ll do my best to help you. If you want to learn more about GIMP techniques, here are some tutorial links to get you started:

• GIMP.org Tutorials
• GIMP-Tutorials.com
• Gimpology
• GIMP Talk
• GIMP Tutorials at the Tutorial Blog - list of tutorial websites

Stop by tomorrow to get the flower photo in a larger size for use as a desktop wallpaper.

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Posted: October 18th, 2007 under Photography.
Comments: 18

This was the view out my back door from 7:00 this morning to 7:05.

I was working on the computer when I saw a strange glow out of the corner of my eye. It was the sunrise reflecting off the buildings to the west. That’s interesting, I thought to myself, and got up to have a look. When I turned around, I saw this out the kitchen window. I grabbed my camera, ran outside, and started taking photos.

But my camera isn’t the greatest, my hands aren’t the steadiest, and the light, while beautiful, wasn’t that strong. I raced back upstairs for the tripod, set it up, and took one photo. Then my batteries died. The color was leaking from the sky, the clouds passing on their way, the sun piercing the trees. All I could do was watch, and laugh.

Yesterday was dark and gloomy. If things had gone against me like this yesterday, I probably would have sat down and cried. But today, the experience itself was almost enough. Even if I didn’t have any photos to show for it, I would still be happy.

Lesson: Make your own internal weather. And buy more rechargeable batteries.

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Posted: October 2nd, 2007 under Inspiration, Photography, Photos.
Comments: 2

An excerpt from my guest post, “11 Tips for Beginner Photographers” on the Digital Photography School Blog.

As a new photographer, these are some of the ideas that have helped get me going.

1. Don’t go crazy buying the most expensive equipment right away.
It’s possible to get very nice photos with an inexpensive point and shoot. See these examples on Flickr. The more photos you take, the more you’ll know about what kind of camera to get when it’s time to upgrade.

2. Consider a tripod.
On the other hand, an inexpensive tripod is worth getting, especially if you have shaky hands like mine. When I got a tripod, my satisfaction with my shots skyrocketed. For even more stability, use your camera’s timer function with a tripod (read our introduction to tripods).

Read the rest here.

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Posted: September 19th, 2007 under Briefly, Photography.
Comments: 2

Every other Friday I post one of my photos. I’m always working on developing my skills and welcome your input. Please leave your feedback in the comments.

To use this photo as a desktop wallpaper, download the standard (1600 x 1200) resolution or the widescreen (1900 x 1200) resolution.

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Posted: September 14th, 2007 under Photography, Photos.
Comments: none

Here are some ideas for the unmotivated photographer. Unmotivated writers, see Tuesday’s post: 6 Writing Prompts for a Lazy Afternoon.

• Take another look at your backyard.
  You’ve probably taken plenty of photos in your backyard: family gatherings, barbecues, or the kids playing. Look again and and see what details you might have missed. Have you ever photographed the wildflowers along the back fence? What about the shadows the swings cast at sunset? What does the garden look like at different perspectives? What about when you zoom in on the squash plant or the row of beans? If you don’t have a backyard, is there a green space you walk past every day? Try to look at it as if for the first time. What do you see?
• Try a still life at home.
  All you need is a cloth taped to your wall and arranged over your kitchen counter. Try a variety of things as your subjects: the fruit and cereal you’re having for breakfast, the sandwich you made for lunch. Try an arrangement of vegetables from your garden, or hone in on single fruits and vegetables. While you’re at it, photograph those figurines you’ve been meaning to sell on Ebay. Pay attention to the light. Soft light from a side window might be best, but experiment with artificial light and flash too.
• Observe the light moving through your house as the day passes.
  Even if you’re busy working around the house, set a timer each hour to check where the light is now. Is there a soft glow that moves down your hallway as the morning progresses? What do the hard shadows from the blinds fall on? Take a look out the window every hour too. What interesting patterns of light are moving across your yard? Even if you don’t take any photos, observing light like this will make you more aware and better prepared when you’re planning a shoot.
• Go find some water.
  Even if it’s just water running over some fruit in the sink (an inspirational example), water can be a fascinating, complex subject for photography. My fiance and I like to visit a nearby dam several times a year. We’ve taken photos of the dam when the river flooded, when trees or other objects were caught between the dam and the current, and when fisherman stood almost in the center of the river below the dam. If you have a camera capable of taking fast photos, the “frozen” spray from the dam can make some fascinating abstract photos. Any body of water, constantly changing, can offer unique opportunities for photography.
• Photograph objects from an ant’s perspective.
  Especially if your camera has macro capabilities, try studying the textures of objects by zooming as close as you can, eliminating distracting objects. What do your jeans look like up close? The bark of a tree? Cracked mud on the riverbank? Try looking at objects in a different way, composing your photos for an abstract effect. Or try your hand at more typical macro photography subjects: flowers, leaves, insects, fruit, small objects like screws or pencil shavings.
• Experiment with post processing software.
  Sometimes, I just don’t want to go somewhere to shoot anything new, but I’m still in the mood to make a photo. I often take this opportunity to learn some new photo editing tricks. If you mainly use photo editing software to crop and reduce the size of your photos, try some of your program’s more advanced features. If you don’t have photo editing software, try downloading free software like Picasa or GIMP, both available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. GIMP has many of the features of the expensive Photoshop software. A variety of tutorials for GIMP are available online:
  • GIMP.org Tutorials
  • GIMP-Tutorials.com
  • Gimpology
  • GIMP Talk
  • GIMP Tutorials at the Tutorial Blog - list of tutorial websites

The next time you’re in the photography mood but lack inspiration, don’t just spend the whole day on Flickr. Try some of these ideas or brainstorm your own today to prepare for those lazy afternoons.

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Posted: September 13th, 2007 under Inspiration, Photography.
Comments: none