Metuchen High School: GIMP

2. Heal and Red-Eye Removal

5 points

The Heal Tool

The Heal tool is ideal for removing small imperfections in a photo.  It is useful, for example, in removing minor blemishes in a person's skin in a photo.  Below is a link to a video that shows the Heal tool in use in doing just this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abav1P6nMVo (no sound)

To use the Heal tool, click the Heal tool in the Toolbox.

In Tool Options, click Brush and adjust the brush size.  In my experience, it works well to use a brush size that is slightly larger than the area of the imperfection.  Hold the CTRL key down and click, near the imperfection that you want to remove.  The idea is to click in an area that is in good shape, an area that you want to "mimic" in modifying the imperfect area.  Then click, or click and drag, over the imperfect area.  You may find that you need to repeatedly CTRL-click if you are dealing with a large area. Use CTRL-Z to undo a recent change. 

Red Eye Removal

Sometimes your photos have "red eye".  You can use the red-eye removal tool to take out the red eye.  Choose Filters > Enhance > Red Eye Removal.  To alter less or more of the photo, drag the Threshold slider.  Click OK.

With some photos, the Red-Eye Removal tool works best when you first draw a rectangle around the eyes that have red eye.  Then use the Red-Eye Removal tool.

Exercise
Download these 3 images.  Right-click and choose "Save Target As" or "Save Image As".

Use the Heal tool to deal with the imperfections in the first 2 photos.  Specifically, remove most of the skin blemishes for the girl on the left.  And remove the 2 scratches in the middle photo.

Use the Red Eye Removal tool to remove red-eye from the 3rd photo.
 

GIMP Links
docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-heal.html
docs.gimp.org/en/plug-in-red-eye-removal.html

Videos