Cameras allow you to adjust the white balance setting in your images, but, I prefer to have an original version with me just in case I want to experiment with the original image.
Now let’s say you want to add warmth to your images. In cameras, you would set the white-balance setting to cloudy or overcast to get this effect.
Now how do we do the same in GIMP?
Original image
Warmed up image
There are a few options:
- You can use the Filter Pack settings.
- You can use the White Balance settings you find in Colors -> Auto -> White Balance.
- Experiment with Hue/Lightness/Saturation (HLS) tool and the Color Balance tool.
The third option gives you a lot of control over the automatic settings and so I will be describing it here.
Here are the steps I follow:
- Go to Colors -> Hue-Saturation…
- Make sure the button ‘Master’ is selected, and then adjust the Hue to a slightly lower value. Here I selected -25.
Original Hue-Saturation values
Adjusting the master hue to a slightly lower value
Image after adjusting the hue - You can also select specific colors and adjust their hues individually. For example, you can make magenta to appear more reddish, yellow to appear more greener etc.
- The next thing to do is to adjust the color balance. Go to Colors -> Color Balance…
Adjusting the color balance - Increase the ‘Red’ in the color and decrease the ‘Green’.
After adjusting the color balance
There are no hard and fast rules. You can try various combinations of these along with Brightness-Contrast to get the right color you want.
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