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This GIMP tutorial shows you how to remove glare on glasses, and you’re familiar with GIMP, this should be a pretty easy.

If you’re a GIMP beginner, you might want to get to know GIMP a little before you jump into this tutorial.

I explain all of the steps as I go in this GIMP video tutorial, but if you just started using GIMP there might be a lot of new information to absorb. If you want to learn GIMP fast, get my GIMP book- Before and After available here. It’s incredibly affordable, and comes with tons of extras like GIMP tutorial videos and high quality images to practice techniques with.

For more GIMP tutorials, check out the Public Library page here at How-to-GIMP.com. For free GIMP video tutorials, check out the Free Videos page.

Here’s the full GIMP video tutorial, and the written tutorial. Have fun!

The video shows you how to use GIMP to achieve a few different effects. You’ll probably need more than one technique to fully correct the glare on your glasses. The techniques you choose, and your end results, will depend on the picture you start with. A photo with the person facing the camera (not at an angle) might be easier to fix than one where the person is facing slightly away from the camera. Small amounts of glare will be easier to correct than glasses that are completely blown out by glare.

GIMP Tutorial – How to Remove Glare on Glasses

1. Do all basic correction before you start. Correct colors, and adjust brightness and contrast as necessary. You can tweak this more later, but it’s easier to start with a photo that’s already corrected.
2. Take a look at the glasses. Does one lens have more or less glare than the other? Because eyes (and glasses) are fairly symmetrical, we can copy the lens with less glare, and flip it to make a mirror image of that lens. Then all you have to do is paste it over the lens that has more glare.
   • To copy the lens, use the Lasso Tool from the toolbox to draw a line around the lens that has less glare. When you get back around to the starting point, the line will turn into ‘marching ants’, or a moving dotted line. That lets you know the line is now a selection.
   • Now, go to Edit > Copy in the main menu to copy the lens you just selected.
   • You don’t want to paste this lens directly on the picture, so create a new layer for it. Pasting on it’s own layer will let me alter the lens later, without effecting the picture underneath.
   • To make the new layer, go to the Layers Dialogue, and right click on the background layer’s thumbnail. Choose Add New Layer from the menu that pops up. A new window will pop up asking you what kind of layer you want to create. Choose Transparency, and click OK.
   • Now, click on this new layer so it’s highlighted in blue in the Layers Dialogue. Any editing you do will only effect the highlighted layer, so it’s important to make sure this new blank layer is highlighted so when we paste the lens, it gets pasted onto the new layer, instead of the background picture.
   • Now, go to Edit > Paste in the main menu, to paste the lens onto the new transparent layer. Then, click the Anchor button at the bottom of the Layers Dialogue to finish pasting the lens onto the transparent layer.
   • To flip the lens, go to Layer > Transform > Flip Horizontally. The lens will flip into the correct orientation. Now, you need to move it, and maybe rotate it into place.
   • To move it into position, grab the Move Tool form the Toolbox then click and drag the lens into position. It may be easier to see when you’ve gotten the lens into the right place if you reduce the opacity of the lens without he Opacity Slider in the LAyers Dialogue (it’s temporary) so you can see when the new lens lines up with the original lens underneath. When you’re happy, make the lens opaque again.
   • You might need to rotate the lens a little to make it really match up perfectly. Use the Rotate tool from the Toolbox to rotate the lens a little, then click Rotate to apply the rotation. You can use the same opacity trick to make sure the kens is lined up correctly.
   • At this point, I would add a layer mask and hide some of the hard edges of the lens to make it look more blended in. It’s pretty much like erasing, except you can undo what you’ve ‘erased’ very easily by painting white on the mask instead of black. If you don’t want to bother with a layer mask, you could use the eraser tool to tough up the edges too.
3. Another option is to clone over any remaining reflection.
   • Use the clone tool from the toolbox, set a source that is the same color and texture as the skin and eye that is hidden by reflection, then stamp over the reflection. You can re-set your source as you go to make everything match.
4. The last option is to darken the reflection a bit, so it’s less distracting. You can either do this with the Dodge/Burn tool in the Toolbox or by using a combination of a new darkened image layer, and a layer mask that will hide everything except the darkened reflection. I describe the second method in the video.

When you’re all done tweaking, save your picture as a jpg by going to File > Export, naming your file, and ending it with .jpg. Click save, and when the next window pops up, save it at the highest quality (100%)

You’re all done!

If you liked this GIMP tutorial, there’s more where that came from!

 
Check out the Public Library page here at How-to-GIMP.com for more GIMP tutorials, and the Free Videos page for more GIMP video tutorials.
 

Know someone who could use some help with GIMP, or their photos in general? Share the love!

 
How-to-GIMP.com, together with PareAndFocus.com are free resources to help you (and your friends) make better pictures. In addition to all of this free content, my GIMP book is a great, affordable way to learn GIMP fast, without a lot of technical jargon.

But, this stuff won’t help anyone if they don’t know about it! So, share the love, and post a link! Got a facebook page, twitter account, or active in a forum? If your friends and followers could use some help, let them know about How-to-GIMP.com and PareAndFocus.com They’ll be glad you did.

Click to see a larger version of this image

Well, have no fear. While GIMP 2.8 brings with it some really important updates and advances, it’s not a completely different animal from GIMP 2.6. You should still be able to follow most GIMP 2.6 tutorials without too much trouble, though there will be some changes to GIMP 2.8 that might throw you for a loop.

To keep you up to date, I made a video that covers some of the highlights of GIMP 2.8. It includes the changes to GIMP brushes and brush options, the new GIMP 2.8 text tool (it’s awesome!) and GIMP’s new layer groups.

These aren’t all of the changes to GIMP 2.8, but they’re changes that I think a GIMP beginner can really appreciate.

As always, if you have any questions you can leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer. Enjoy!

Most of my early frustration with using GIMP came from this one: The Activation Click.

Before Mac users can use a window in GIMP, they have to click it once to ‘activate’ it.

This leads to a lot of annoying extra clicks. And if you don’t remember to activate windows, it can also lead to cursing, and hair pulling. I especially hate grabbing a tool from the Toolbox, only to realize I didn’t really grab it. Remembering that little activation click has been a crucial part of making GIMP easy to use… until now.

You know what’s better than remembering to activate windows?

Not having to activate them. That’s what.

Thanks to the hard working people here at team Landreth -AKA my husband who is awesome- there’s now a free app for Mac users that will get rid of the whole activation click thing once and for all!

I’m calling it the Click-Killer…

You heard that right. If remembering to activate windows is too much for you (it is for me), all you have to do is download the app using the buttons above, un-zip it, and run it. After it’s run, you won’t need the activation click in GIMP anymore. Make sure GIMP and X11 are both closed before you run the script.

There are two versions, one for Leopard, and one for Lion. The version for Leopard may work with Snow Leopard, but it hasn’t been tested yet. I’ll update as more versions are available.

P.S.

If you’re wondering if GIMP is any good for graphic design work, the short answer is yes. I made the buttons above, from scratch, using nothing but GIMP. I’m not even really adept at graphic design stuff. If I can do it, anyone can.

• To open photos with GIMP, first open up GIMP. Find the Main Window. It’s the one with the menu bar across the top.
• Go to File > Open. The Open Image window will pop up (see the image below).
• Now, use this window to navigate through your computer’s files, and find the image you want to open.  You can also use the Search function on the left side of this window to search for files by name.
• Once you find your image, highlight it, then click Open. The image will open in GIMP’s main window, and you can start editing.

The GIMP Open Image Window (Click to see this larger)

There’s obviously a lot more to using GIMP than opening your photos. But it’s a really important first step! I mean, if you couldn’t open you photos, you wouldn’t get very far.

You can use GIMP to do just about anything to your pictures. From small tweaks to contrast and color, to creating web banners, ‘photoshoping’ people onto different backgrounds and making fuller figures look slimmer, GIMP’s got it all.

So tell me, what do you want to do with GIMP? Do you want to retouch portraits, or spruce up your product photos? Make a web banner, or a Valentines card? Do you want to correct funky colors, or create photographic works of art?  Pick your poison, and let me know in the comments below.

Installing GIMP is Easier than You Might Think

You’ve decided to come join the fun in GIMP land, and we’re excited to have you! Now the question is, how do you get GIMP up and running on your computer?

It’s really easy to Install GIMP. Here’s the basic idea:

1. To install GIMP on your computer, first, you’ll need to know just a little information about your computer. Basically, you’ll need to know what operating system you’re running, and if GIMP is compatible with it.
2. Then, you’ll find the correct version of GIMP for your operating system.
3. Last, you’ll download GIMP, and run the installer. For Mac, there might be one extra step. (It’s just to make sure you have a program called X11 or XQuartz on your computer.)

Now that you have the basic idea, here are the instructions in more detail.

Install GIMP For Windows:

• If you’re on Windows, and you don’t know what operating system you’re using (ie Windows 7, Windows XP, etc.) follow these instructions to find out which operating system you’re running. You’ll need Windows XP or newer to run the latest stable version of GIMP.
• Don’t know if your operating system came before, or after Windows XP? Here’s a timeline of Windows versions to help you out.
• Now, go to This Page and click the Download link at the top of the page to download GIMP. This version of GIMP will work with any version of Windows, as long as it’s Windows XP or newer.
• When the download is complete, open up the package, and run the installer. Follow any instructions on the windows that appear.
• That’s it! You’re finished installing GIMP! The first time you start GIMP, it may take a few minutes to get going, because there’s a lot of new stuff to load. Just be patient, it will start eventually.

Install GIMP For Mac:

• To install GIMP 2.6, You’ll need Mac OS X, either 10.4.11 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard), or 10.7 (Lion). To Install GIMP 2.8, you’ll need 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or 10.7 (Lion).
• Not sure which version of Mac OS you’re using? Follow these instructions to find out.
• If you have Tiger, you’ll need your original OS instillation disk so you can install an extra utility called X11. There are really good instructions on how to install X11 here.
• If you’ve got Lion, Snow Leopard, or Leopard, and you want to install GIMP 2.6, X11 is already installed on your computer, so you can skip that step.
• If you want to install GIMP 2.8, if you have any of the operating systems mentioned above, you’ll need to install the latest version of a program called XQuartz. Download XQartz version 2.7.1 Here. Once it’s downloaded, open up the file to run the installer, and follow the directions. When you’re done, come back here to install GIMP.
• Once you confirm your version of OS, and you make sure you have either X11 or XQuartz, choose the correct version of GIMP from this download page, and click it’s link to download GIMP to your computer.
• When the files are finished downloading, open up the Zip file, then open the installer to begin installing GIMP. Follow any directions you’re given in the windows that pop up.
• GIMP will now be installed on your computer! The first time you start GIMP, it may take a few minutes to get going, because there’s a lot of new stuff to load. Just be patient, it will start eventually.

Now that GIMP is installed, you’re ready to get started editing! You can use GIMP to open and edit any image file that’s on your computer.

More GIMP Help

There’s plenty more GIMP help where this came from. I mean, literally, where this came from. How-to-GIMP.com has a growing library of easy to understand, plain English GIMP tutorials and videos to help you learn GIMP faster.

Check out the Public Library Page for more GIMP Tutorials, and the Free Videos page for free GIMP video tutorials.