Life Behind A Lens

The aim of this tutorial is to show you how to produce a mist or fog effect on an image like this:

(Image used with Little-Red’s permission)

Here goes then :)

• Open your image in GIMP and carry out any other work that you’re planning on it (sharpening, softening, adjusting contrast etc etc)
• Duplicate your background layer and make sure that your ‘copy’ (the top layer) is selected.
• Go to Filters->Render->Clouds->Plasma in your main image window.

Note: Once the Plasma dialogue window is open, you can cycle through different ‘seeds’ to generate different effects.

• You will now have a visible multicoloured layer and your actual image hidden underneath. Don’t Panic!! It’s supposed to be like this :)
• Next step is to turn your cloud layer into greyscale (Colours->Desaturate)
• Now, all you need to do is adjust the opacity by moving the slider above the layers section of the layers, channels, paths etc tool window. Do this until you get the level of fog cover just how you want it. (Around 30% is normally a pretty nice place to start, but it does depend on how thick you want the effect).

That’s it, job’s a goodun.. Have fun making your crispy clear images all misty :))