Gimp: Brighten Pictures

I hope you had a chance to read our introduction to the Gimp tutorials. As said, I will teach you how to brighten a picture. Not all of us have a light box where we can take such awesome pictures with nice white backgrounds, so sometimes the pictures turn out a little dark. If you don't have a light box, you can try to take your picture in natural light (sunlight) to get your picture nice and clear... But if you just can't seem to get a bright enough picture, follow this simple tutorial, the first one teaches you how to brighten the ENTIRE picture on Gimp.

Note: You can click on the pictures to enlarge it.

1. Open Gimp. Open your picture by clicking on File --> Open. Locate your picture, then choose Open. Another method is to right click on the picture, and choose Edit with Gimp.

2. Now with the picture opened, click on Colors --> Brightness-Contrast (4th from drop list).



3. The Brightness-Contrast Box should pop up. Now all you have to do is move the little bar to your desired brightness/contrast.



4. Time to save your photo. Click on File-->Save. Make sure the extension is set to .jpg You can change it to something else if you'd like by clicking on the "Select File Type (By Extention) on the bottom left.

Second part of tutorial teaches you how to brighten a SECTION of your photo on Gimp.
I've only brighten the red origami tulip (not the background or anything else). This is a good tutorial to use if you are trying to only brighten up parts of your picture.

1. Open your picture on Gimp (follow step one above)

2. With the picture opened, click on the Free Select Tool (first row, third button).
3. Trace an outline on the portion you would like to brighten. It will form a dotted outline around the object.

4. Now, once you have that outlined dots around your selected part, you can brighten it by clicking on Colors --> Brightness-Contrast (4th from drop list). Then move the Brightness and Contrast Bar to your desire. (This step is shown above on steps 2-3) Make sure you save your file!

If you would like to see a specific Gimp tutorial, or have a question about editing a photo on Gimp, please leave your questions/comments/suggestions below or you can send me an email directly.

Next week, you will learn how to crop your photos.