off-topic question about linux photo software

[db (martinez, ca.)]

sorry for the misuse of the bandwidth but since i know there are people here that use linux:

is there something that will run on ubuntu that i can use to bring out a darkened face without washing out the light background? trying to share two pictures of a dead friend with other folks that knew him via a facebook memorial site so the size is small. detail is not as important as contrast.

[Lincoln R.]

GIMP could probably do that with careful adjustment of levels. "Colors" menu, item named "Levels". Play with the input levels sliders until it looks as good as you can reasonably get it.

[Luiz C. Vieira (Brazil)]

I second you on your suggestion: GIMP.

Just a word of advise: as you are dealing with such important information, experiment over a copy from the original files. You can always start from scratch, but once you save a retouched image, chances are the changes may become undo-able. Better playing safe than loosing a precious memento.

Cheers.

Luiz (Brazil)

Edited: 30 June 2012, 1:59 p.m.

[Calum Tait]

I would agree with Luiz and add that it is best to save in the native xcf format prior to exporting as a tiff, png, jpeg etc. as this will give you a working copy and the xcf format should save some level of undo depending on your gimp preferences settings. The latest versions (2.7 snapshots and 2.8 stable) save to xcf as default and to save in any other format you need to select Export (Ctrl+Shift+E) rather than Save (Ctrl+S). Version 2.8 also has layer grouping which is useful if you make a lot of changes. There are other image editing programs for Linux but I would say GIMP is the most highly featured offering most of what is available in Photoshop and some features which aren't. If you learn to use it you won't regret it.

[Dominic Richens]

Google "contrast mask GIMP" for a tutorial on how to reduce the dynamic range (e.g. make the dark foreground and bright background the "same")

[Garth Wilson]

Gimp. It's amazing what it can do. I joke that it can create wonderful memories of things that never happened, as it had, before Photoshop did, the ability to remove or fix things in the picture and "heal" it such that you can't tell it's fake.

[Valentin Albillo]

Quote:

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sorry for the misuse of the bandwidth but since i know there are people here that use linux:

is there something that will run on ubuntu that i can use to bring out a darkened face without washing out the light background? trying to share two pictures of a dead friend with other folks that knew him via a facebook memorial site so the size is small. detail is not as important as contrast.

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Send me the pictures by email (don't forget the "HP CALCS" string in the Subject and body of the message) and I'll do the retouching for you using the latest version of Photoshop. Lots of experience with that kind of work, will be ready within 24 hours.

(Just in case you didn't know, I'm sending you my email address by private forum message)

Best regards from V.

[Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove]

If you happen to have the picture in "raw" format rather than in jpg, you can also use the freeware program Raw Therapee (available for ubuntu). It will yield better results because the raw format is much more forgiving than jpg for this kind of photo editing. Just in case.