GIMP Tutorial: How to Make a Photo Look Antique / Sepia
GIMP is an open-source image editing component that comes built into many Linux distributions.
This is a quick and easy tutorial that will show you a simple trick to make any photo look sepia-toned or antique in GIMP image editor. I’m running GIMP version 2.6 on Ubuntu.
This may not be the most professional way to do things, but it certainly gets results.
Step 1: Open you photo in GIMP
Open up GIMP and go to File > Open, and select the picture you want to edit. This is what I’m using:
Step 2: Colorize your Photo
In the top menu, go to Colors > Colorize. You should see this panel pop up, and your photo will become oversaturated with a bright color:
Pull the Hue slider to the left until your photo is a mid yellow-orange shade, like this:
It’s still got a bit too much color in it, so now let’s pull the Saturation slider down just a smiden until all but a touch of the orange color has been removed, like this:
Click “OK”. You’re done with this panel.
Many old photos suffer from over-exposure, so we want to create that same effect in this shot. To do that, go to Colors > Brightness / Contrast, and pull the contrast slider to the right a bit to increase the contrast. Leave the brightness slider alone.
That’s it! Here are my results:
