1. Start with simple composition
This is a great tip for people who are new to photo manipulation because starting with complex photo manipulation will make it very hard to get it right, and it can even be demotivating when your creation doesn’t look good, so starting with simple stuff will help you understand the most basic part of photo manipulation. For example, you may learn how to blend images, create highlights, and do other simple things to improve the look of your creation.
2. Restricts effects to any layer
Clipping masks are certainly something you’ve heard of if you’ve ever watched Photoshop tutorials or photo manipulation videos. It’s a feature that allows you to restrict your preferred layer to any layer.
In many of my photo manipulation videos, I have used this technique, but to use this technique in gimp, all you have to do is put all the layers inside a layer group and make sure that your effect layers are on top of your main subject layer.
3. Paint Bounce light to make your highlight looks realistic
You’ve matched the shadows, color, and light numerous times, but your photo manipulation still doesn’t look realistic or nice. This is due to the fact that we often overlook bounce light.
When we create a photo manipulation, we normally focus on direct light, and we ignore indirect light and light that bounces around in the environment and reaches you.
And that’s creates your bounce light.
To create the bounce light, pick a colour and paint that colour on a new layer with an overlay and softlight blending mode.
4. How To to Use Lighten Blending Modes
This is a series of blending modes that are highly crucial for creating highlights and glows, but they don’t always function well by default. This doesn’t mean that these blending modes are useless, but rather that if you know this technique, you will use these blending modes all the time.
To properly use these blending modes,
Create a new layer
Fill it with black.
Then change the blending mode to these blending modes.
When you paint something in that layer, everything appears to work perfectly.
5. Make Selection around your Layer
This is a simple tip, but it can help you speed up your image manipulation in Gimp because you may need to make a selection around your layer during photo manipulation. To make a selection around a layer, Alt Click on the layer’s thumbnail. After this, pixels will be fully selected, transparent pixels will be unselected, and translucent pixels will be partially selected.
6. Match blacks
Matching blacks in Gimp can be tricky and destructive, but this tip is simple to learn and non-destructive.
To match the blacks
Create a new layer
With Color Picker tool pick the blacks of your background.
Fill the sampled color in the new layer.
Set the blending mode to lighten only.
