Wait, there is one more thing to add to the list of unknown fact about me that I forget to mention. Amazing, it’s the most enjoyable hobby I have after photography:
7. I enjoy using GIMP to manipulate my photographs.
So much so that when I found this photograph on @Rant’s flickr gallery, I spent an hour of my morning manipulating it into something much more scarier.
It only took three layers.
Layer 1.
The base layer with the sky and ocean was procured from a free-wallpaper site and cropped massively to take out only what I wanted. You can see how the clouds are horizontally mirrored.
Layer 2.
This took the most time. I painstakingly lasso‘d all around the edges of the crocodile. I feathered the edges (5.000). I applied a layer-mask that made the background transparent. Then I went through all the filter options to see how I could bring out the colour of the ocean into the crocodile.
Layer 3.
This was a duplicate of Layer 2 used purely to give back some texture to Layer 2. With the use of ‘curves‘, I darkened it slightly.
Then I merged it all together. Got it one take. Not bad even if I say so myself.
Creativity & Artwork of Stephen Mitchell 
That’s grand – I like your explanation of how you did this – gives me ideas… ideas are grand.
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It’s great :) Never tried GIMP
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Glad you like it Rantz.
As I said on Plurk, it was made whilst waiting for a program to upload/update. Took about an hour, which surprises even me. Some of my early work with GIMP took at least 3 hours, so I figure I must know the program a lot better now!
Oh, important note, I only started learning GIMP in early 2008. Never used photoshop, but might pay for it one day. But cannot see any reason whilst great programs like GIMP are available for free!
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Thanks Wendy.
It’s a great program, and surprisingly easy to learn.
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