Hari's Corner

Humour, comics, tech, law, software, reviews, essays, articles and HOWTOs intermingled with random philosophy now and then

GIMP effect: creating an old photo

Filed under: Tutorials and HOWTOs by Hari
Posted on Wed, Feb 14, 2007 at 21:32 IST (last updated: Sun, May 10, 2009 @ 16:42 IST)

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The Old Photo effect is a really cool script provided by GIMP. It's really a pretty simple effect but I thought I should record the steps necessary to get the result desired. There might be other ways of achieving a similar effect, but the tutorial below is a result of something I learned on my own.

Here's the original image I worked with
Dean Jones

Take any image you wish and create a copy of it. Then,
  1. Go to the Filter -> Artistic -> Photocopy. Play around with it until you get this kind of a result:
    Dean Jones Photocopy effect My settings for the effect were: Mask radius: 41.67, Sharpness: 0.962, Percent black: 0.595, Percent white: 0.278. Of course, you might want to vary this, depending on the image you use and the contrast you wish to obtain in the end.
  2. Then apply the Script-Fu -> Decor -> Old Photo effect. Have a 0 border and select the Defocus and Sepia effects only. Don't select Mottle. Here's the result:
    Dean Jones old photo stage 1
  3. To get a deeper shade (and older effect) apply the same Old Photo script again, but this time without selecting defocus. Only choose Sepia again. You should get something like this:
    Dean Jones old photo stage 2
  4. Now for some added effects. Choose Script Fu -> Decor -> Coffee Stain. You should play around with it until you get the required effect and you won't get the same effect each time. So keep trying it till you get that perfect stain. Here's my try:
    Dean Jones old coffee stain effect
  5. Now to get a border for this photo. Choose Script Fu -> Decor -> Round Corners. I chose the settings: Edge Radius: 2, Shadow offset x: 2, Shadow offset y: 2, Blur Radius: 4.
And here's the effect I got by applying the steps (actually the coffee stain on this particular attempt was quite good):
Dean Jones Old Photo final

Cool, ain't it?

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6 comment(s)

  1. So this is how you make cartoons:?:lol! was jus kiddin:wink:, nice work!

    Comment by LogeshTamilSelvan (visitor) on Wed, Feb 14, 2007 @ 23:27 IST #
  2. Mmmm.. I love me some GIMP! I use to be a photoshop guy, forced myself onto the GIMP after going to Linux fulltime, never went back. I since use a Windows laptop for work but I use the GIMP in Windows now too.

    Comment by drew (visitor) on Thu, Feb 15, 2007 @ 02:52 IST #
  3. Drew, yes. I've also installed GIMP In Windows now. It requires the GTK run-time library though, but it's a small download. :smile:

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Thu, Feb 15, 2007 @ 07:37 IST #
  4. I should perhaps make a few gimp tutorials myself and share the knowledge.. ;)

    Comment by drew (visitor) on Sat, Feb 17, 2007 @ 04:53 IST #
  5. Please do... I'm still stuck on Macromedia Fireworks 8 and I'll use nothing else, despite having tried to move to the GIMP many times *sigh*I should have given up Fireworks 8 for Lent :P

    Comment by J_K9 (visitor) on Sun, Mar 4, 2007 @ 16:44 IST #
  6. GIMP has some cool effects, but it requires patience to achieve the exact effects you want. Script-Fu is a great time-saver, though.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Sun, Mar 4, 2007 @ 20:31 IST #

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