How to add scratches to photos using GIMP?

Hi!!

Is it possible to take a digital photo (In GIMP photo editor) and add scratches to the picture to make it look old? I know that the program offers a filter to make the photo look old, but scratches are not included.

If you know of any tutorials on how to do this, or, are kind enough to give your own...Please do.

Thanks!!!

 

sorry no idea how to do it in gimp, did these in ps!

Original:

scratched:

 

Unfortunately, I don't have photoshop. From what I have read, GIMP is the next best free program to photoshop..whether this is true..I don't know.

 

The easiest way out is to find some texture and blend it with your photo. See the texture of TheOne's work? I'm thinking of using a non smooth gradient and desaturate it. Tune a bit brightness/contrast and it's ok. GIMP should be able to do this.





'cept for being free, GIMP is far far, and far away from Photoshop, accept this.

 

I use gimp all the time. It's very comparable to cs2 at this point.(which admittedly is a long ways from cs5), is free, you can talk to the actual devs, and you dont have to deal with the insufferable pricks in Adobe marketing.

You want scratches in a pic in gimp?

Easy.

Grab that pic KMC posted,
open your pic in gimp
open KMC's pic as a layer,
right click on the layer in the right hand bar and "add alpha"(transparency, since jpg doesnt support it)
stay in the right hand tool bar, find the mode dropdown box at the top.
start changing the mode of your stripe layer till you find a mode you like.
Your opacity is right there too, so if you want to increase or decrease how much you see of your stripes you can

simple, gimp is easily able to handle most anything you throw at it, it just wont turn a talentless hack into an artist like photoshop will. You have to learn to use it.
Oh, and you can develope tools and plugins for it without going thru adobe lawyer hell and paying big money to add tools to adobe's stockholders bottomline.

Beyond that, I'd bet there arent 3 legitimate copies of cs4, legally owned by the person using it within the viewing range of this post.

 

use this scratch picture and blend it with SoftLight

 

Thanks guys...Much appreciated. I will give it a go!

 

i've always wondered about adobe's viewpoint on piracy. firstly it's too widespread for them to likely do anything about it. however, i've actually come to the conclusion that they're quite pleased about it. they know that no personal user is gonna pay $600 for photoshop, or $2500 for CS. all the money they make (and it's a LOT of money) comes from commerical licenses, which probably only accounts for about a tenth of all copies in use worldwide. but the way i look at it, let people use it for free. let people gain years of experience with it, the more they use it, the more likely they are to use it if they're setting up a business. as far as i'm concerned, people using photoshop illegally is just advertising and goes a long way to building up a worldwide fan base. i should be officially setting up a media based company within the year, and (although a small part of me will die when i do it ), i know that when i do, i'll pay for a full adobe license, and i won't hesitate in doing so, because i've got 11 years worth of experience and learning invested in it!

 

Very good points Lukin. Except when you take the anti-piracy measures built in to CS3 into account. How about the mandatory activation in CS2? I think the big software companies like Adobe and M$ have come up with a new scheme. If you cant stop people from pirating software over an open mostly free internet, dont chase them, just lock down the internet.

 

they must like making us work! there are measures built in to the software but I've used every version of Photoshop from 7 to CS2, and then the whole of CS3 and CS4. I don't know anything about cracking software, but bypassing all their security only takes a quick google. maybe they like to appear to be more interested than they are