I’ve continued my exploration of gimp this week, enjoying lots of back episodes of Meet the GIMP, a video tutorial podcast about the GNU Image Manipulation Program. Non-textile life continues to absorb pretty much all my time and creative energy, so a predominately passive activity that still builds useful skills and knowledge is just what I need.
I took this photo a while back at the Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens. I’ve done some “post processing” of the photo (practising GIMP) and am not sure how close the resulting colour is to life…
As well as the pixelize and smooth palette tools I used before here, I’ve tried converting the photo to indexed colour and then creating a colour map. (I’ve upgraded to Gimp 2.6.6: convert to indexed with menu Image/Mode/Indexed; create colour map using Windows/Dockable Dialogs/ColorMap or add it to your tool box; the Palette is now under Colors/Map/Palette Map).
This is the generated color map. In the end I used all the software generated extractions when creating my grid, but still referred back to the original (well, doctored) photo for specific colours such as the rust red specks (stamens??) on the flower.
This is my final grid. As with my previous attempts, it looks very flat and lifeless. At some stage I am likely to change my grid format, probably to fewer colours. If I want to use these as a guide for dyeing yarn I would probably want fewer base colours, then mix them and play with dilution as I am painting the yarn.
I went back to my fire photos and did the indexing/color map trick with those. This first example is from my own photo, shown in this post. It has a lot of the flickering flame combined with charcoal, smoke and ashes that I first wanted, although not the glowing red.
The second is from a photo of a more brightly burning fire (from a photo I found on the web, so I won’t reproduce it). I’m surprised by the pinks and purples that the software found – not at all my idea of “fire” colours.
There will be weaving soon, I promise! I actually have some Finished Objects from a few weeks ago, waiting for their moment in the limelight. In the meantime, Monday morning is approaching and my weekend list of chores still looks like Mount Everest.
It’s close to the end of the long weekend, the afternoon sky has darkened and it is pouring rain. I’m inching ahead on my next weaving project, busy winding 20/2 silk ready for dyeing. The dyeing itself is delayed, due to the previously mentioned bad light and flooding (literally, in my garage) rain.
In the meantime, some brave flowers found yesterday in my neglected garden, and the colour grid based on it
this version of the flowers. It makes me want to cut some stamps and start embellishing fabric! This is a very rough and ready version – less than 5 minutes. It could be a really powerful tool with a little practice…
