my wow blog is basically a screenshot blog. images are screenshot from world of warcraft – if you don’t know what it is, it’s an online game.

all images are edited with gimp , a free image manipulation tool. if you are a photoshop user, you’ll think it’s an inferior product. but if you don’t want to pay for the high price, this is a good tool. it’s free!

before the images are edited, most of them are dull, like the image below: (note it’s been resized so that it fits in the post)

after they are edited, the images are brighter and sharper, like the image below:

how is it done?

i’m not an expert gimp user. if i can do it, you can do it too.

step 1: create a new image

from top menu > file > new. set image size, say 600 x 450 pixels. background can be transparent or anything. it won’t show.

step 2: open the image

use open as layer to select an image. select the layer, scale and move the layer. call this layer ‘image’.

step 3: brighter the image

select the image layer. from top menu > colors > curves. set the curve as below:

i don’t know how this works. i just find that move the curve on the top right section upwards brighten the image.

step 4: sharpen the image

duplicate the image layer. select the duplicated layer, change the mode to overlay and adjust the tranparency as follows:

you can repeat this step a few time to get the desired result by adjust different transparency level for each duplicated layers.

step 5: text watermarks (optional)

i like to imprint the url of the site as watermark on my images. so that if you see the images outside this domain, you know where it’s from.

this can be easily done:

• use text tool
• click anywhere on the image and type the text you want to show on the image
• select desired font and font size. i use verdana bold 32px.
• select a light color, eg white or light grey
• set the layer mode to ‘grain merge’ and set the desired transparency. note: you can set to other modes and experiment with the result.
• move the layer to where you want the watermark appear. and make sure this layer is the top layer