Chey on Whimcentricity

Written 24 June, 2010

Chey on Whimcentricity

The other day I took some photographs of myself sitting by the geysers on Whimcentricity, playing with Windlight skies.

Today, when I looked at them, the snapshots with the best backgrounds made my avi t0o dark, and the ones that made me look best didn't complement the background.

And so I did what any accomplished narcissist would do; I loaded two of the pictures into GIMP, placing the photo with the nicest background on top and the photo with the nicest photo of myself beneath it. Then, making sure alpha was enabled on the top layer, I ran the eraser over my avi, letting the brighter image of myself from below show though.

When I was finished, I had the background I liked best, and the image of myself I liked best, and the image was flawless.

Except, dammit! What was that black dot?

It seems I had touched the top layer with the pen tool selected, leaving a bit of ink. Grrrr!

So I reloaded the photo and ran the eraser over the back dot, allowing the bottom layer to show though. I defy you, gentle reader, to find where I originally screwed up the shot.

I'm no expert with GIMP; anyone who works with the program for a while-- or with Photoshop, which has the same functionality-- can manipulate photos in amazing ways.

I should point out that I took all the shot without moving my camera view; this put the elements in every photo I took in exactly the same place. Try that in real life!