In example 1.0 here we have a faded grayscale image with low contrast, which is the easiest to fix in Gimp 3, and can be fixed in a few different ways. Looking at this image, what is wrong with it. What do you think? Bringing this faded image back to life without using levels, curves tools or even dealing with the brightness and contrast tools.

Looking at our first example here 1.0, you can easily see how faded it looks, there’s not much contrast and the tones are very light. Blending mode are a great and easy way to fix certain problems, each blending mode uses a mathematical equation to create a desired effect, based on the layer or layers it applied to. So, when you use other filter(s) and 1 click menus, you are using their math equations to adjust your image. Which is not a bad thing at all and is very helpful indeed. Most adjustment titles should give you some kind of clues as to what to expect when using them.

The first step in correcting this image, would be to duplicate the background layer and change the blending mode of light to multiply with the opacity set at 100%. Then you would duplicate this layer (the top layer again), leaving the blending mode and opacity the same, which correct the contrast and tones. Which now made it look pretty good, but there is still a gray haze in the image. This can easily be removed by duplicating the top layer one more time. Then change the blending mode of light to burn with the opacity set to 100%. Now we have restored this faded image back to life without using levels or curves. See 1.1. What's nice about this is that the leaves that are green, have the right monotone shade for being green in a grayscale.


Now if we used the Auto Equalize in Gimp, we get an incorrect green tone. See 1.2, they look like they have a yellow to an orange monotone, why, because it is gear for mostly for colored images. And is still useful, but not in this way. What this preset is trying to do is the same thing we just did with blending modes, but it works best with color values, which are not there. The title tells us what it does, it takes the RGB channels and tries to correct the image by dividing all 3 primary color light sources by thirds by stretching your active layer histogram by flatten it out and boosting the contrast to correct it.


What if we were to use the Brightness Contrast tool, we get the same thing as the Equalize tool, with some differences, making it still off in the grayscale. Even if you try to use the Exposure tool, it will fail there too, which is another impossible task, because it needs the same thing, color values. Now if you don’t want to go the blending mode route, your second-best choice is the curves tool, or the other good options is the levels tool. Which require you to adjust the pixels levels by stretching your active layer histogram without boosting the contrast or leaving a haze in the image.

Your probability thinking, why learn how to do this when you have all these advance tool?
It is the basic of imaging correction, and can be the different in saving time and creating a
keeper to be proud of or letting it go. Part 3 has good examples of this being used.

I did similar in 5 steps. dup > linear burn layer mode > merge > dup > multiply layer mode
And if there is any more haze - GMIC's "local contrast enhance" should get rid of it also making the picture sharper.