The Flame
I've been visiting a mix of photography blogs recently. Besides seeing great images, I've learning about some techniques. One, which I learned on Leavesnbloomsudio, is to create a palette. For a better discussion, I would suggest clicking the previous link, but the basic idea is to use the hues of an image to generate a selection of colors.
The size of palette can be small or big. In the typical gif format, which used to be widely used, has an indexed palette comprised of 256 colors. With advances in computing, the need to keep image sizes limited has diminished, though there are still uses of color schemes, particularly with web design. To help create 5 color palette (web design default), Adobe has a site called Kuler, which specializes in auto creation of palettes.
I uploaded the grill image and let Kuler "create" a palette. Besides the creation, the site also allows you to adjust the palette. In my case, I adjusted the points on the image until I settled on this palette.
Hues of Wood Charcoal Burning
Kuler has a file export extension .ase which is readable by Adobe Photoshop. Being an user of GIMP, GNU Image Manipulation Program, I couldn't directly import the palette into the software. However, Kuler also gives the components of the colors. Using the Hex values, I was able to import and save my grill palette.
With the palette ready in GIMP, I was now able to use the Palette Map feature, which takes each of the pixels in the image and replaces it with an appropriate color in the palette. So this image from the Tennessee Aquarium's Butterfly Garden...
Butterfly in the Garden
...became this.
With Fresh Colors
Clicking the Palette Map function again, I arrived at this image.
One More Take
Using the same process, I took this image from the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland...
Bridging
...and turned it into this.
A New Sketch
If you want to check out more color palettes and great photographs from other bloggers, click the
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Hi Bill thanks for joining in this week with the palettes and you sure have had a great time using those blues and reds. You extracted some lovely shades from that flame shot though as a photonaturalist I think your original of the butterfly is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI've just had an email from a website I get newsletters from each month and when I opened the link I saw something on gimp and wondered who I could send it too - well since you use the program here's a useful set of shortcuts.
http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/gimp-shortcuts-pdf
Hi Rosie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. If I had to rate, I'd pick the butterfly over the grill, though the grill colors fascinate me more. I think some of my flower shots from Portland's International Rose Graden would make excellent palettes, though roses are almost given--it's not hard to take a nice photograph of a beautiful rose.
Thanks for the shortcuts. I printed them; they should come in handy. Though I actually use three different free programs, Photoscape, Paint.net, and GIMP. For most work, I actually use Photoscape, which is more of a photo touchup and minor editing program. For more detailed changes like adjusting the color curves or palettes, I have to use something else. GIMP is powerful, but not always the most intuitive or easy to use.