Photography How-To: Create a Lomo-Like Effect in GIMP

{ © Lynn Daue, 2005, 2011. All rights reserved. }

Back in March of last year, I posted a Thursday 13 with a bunch of pictures that I had processed using GIMP, a freely-distributed photo-processing program. At the end of the post, I asked if anyone wanted to know how to do it ... and then never followed up. Is it too late to drop some knowledge on you?

How-To: Create a Lomo-Like Effect in GIMP

1. Start with an unedited picture. It can be of whatever you want, really. I'm going to use this one from our family camping trip this past year. (Truthfully, I've already edited this by cropping and minor color correction, but let's pretend I didn't.)

{ © Lynn Daue 2011. All rights reserved. }

Note: Make sure that your foreground/background colors are BLACK and WHITE, respectively.

2. Crop it to your desired size. I'm a big fan of using the Golden Sections or Rule of Thirds guide when cropping. This picture was previously cropped using Golden Sections. See how the right hand vertical of the grid is (mostly) aligned with the foreground of the fence?

3. Color-correct your base image. For this photo, I applied an automatic white color balance. This won't always work, so read more about color-correction in GIMP here.

4. If you used an additional layer to color correct your base image, flatten your image. You can find this command under the Layers menu. In the Layers sidebar, click on the uppermost layer. Go to Layers>Merge Down.

5. Sharpen your color-corrected image. For overall sharpening, use the Unsharp Mask. I prefer to use the Unsharp Mask with the preset values. Find by clicking Filters>Enhance>Unsharp Mask.

6. Add a layer of black. Yep, that's it, go on and add that all-black layer by clicking on Layers>New Layer>Foreground Color. Change the name to something like "Vingette" as to not get confused.

Warning! If you changed your foreground color in Step Three, make sure you change it back to black before proceeding!

7. Change the mode to Soft Light. In the layers sidebar, go to Mode and select the Soft Light mode.

8. Add a layer mask. On the black layer, add a layer mask by clicking on Layers>Mask>Add Layer Mask. Select White (Full opacity).

9. Freehand select a section of the photo. On the Toolbox sidebar, select the icon that looks like a lasso. Select Feather Edges and set the radius to something high, like 80. Freehand a section of the photo, presumably the subject on which you want to focus.

10. Fill the selection with black. While your lassoed area is selected, click on the paint bucket icon in the Toolbox bar. Then scroll over to your picture and fill the selected area with black. You should see your selected area come through brighter and fade out towards the edges. If you don't, hit Undo (Ctrl+Z), make sure that your layer mask is selected (the white layer next to the all-black layer in the Layers sidebar) and try again.

11. Deselect the filled area.  Click on Ctrl+Shift+A.

12. Blur the layer mask. Ensure that your layer mask is still selected. Go to Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur and set the Blur Radius to something really high, like 300. A general rule of thumb is 10% of the image's larger dimension in pixels (e.g. a 3200x2800 pixel picture would have a blur radius of 320).

13. Adjust the opacity of the black layer. On the layers sidebar, click on the black square. Adjust the opacity until there is only a hint of black on the edges of the photo in the main window. For most photos, something between 60 and 80 percent opacity is good. I used 60 percent for this one.

14. Flatten your image. As before, make sure that your black layer is selected. Go to Layers>Merge Down.

Congratulations! You've just applied a vingette to your photo. Now, on to the fun part!

15. Warp the color. Open the Curves window under Colors (Colors>Curves). Pump up the white and dial down the black until the previously straight diagonal line forms an S. Play with the colors until you get what you like.

16. Dial down the color (optional). If you warped the color enough in the previous step, you probably got something overly vibrant. It may be a bit much, especially if you used this process on pictures of people. To dial down the color, add another layer of black (Layers>New Layer>Foreground Color). In the layers sidebar, change the mode to Color and the opacity to about 40%. (If you don't remember how to change the mode, refer back to Step 7). Play with the opacity to get what you like. For this, I used a 30% opacity.

17. Final touchups. Merge your color leaching layer down (Layers>Merge Down) and apply another Unsharp Mask (Filters>Enhance>Unsharp Mask), if needed. Voila! You're done!

If you used this with people, you may have other issues like spotty skin, red eyes, or just plain weird shadows. I don't know how to do this well, so you're out of luck here. Try Googling "gimp+[whatever correction you need]" for more tutorials. And good luck!

Have you tried this photo enchancing process in GIMP? How about any others? What's your favorite and how do you do it? Leave your link in the comments section; I'd love to see your work!

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