How to Use the Curves Tool in GIMP

Learn how to properly use the Curves Tool in GIMP! This powerful free photo editor can make blah photos look amazing - and the techniques I show you in the tutorial are broken down for beginners to understand. Using the curves tool, you'll be able to adjust the value of your image (i.e. brightness and contrast), as well as color correct the image. This tool uses a histogram to display pixel values and a linear curve to edit those values.
Finally understand the complex curves tool and add it to your arsenal of photography tools!
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#CurvesTool #ColorCurves #ToneCurve

[@tohellwithtradition]

Found your channel exactly at the right time…makes me value the “when the student is ready, the teacher appears” thought 😅 Thank you so much for those tutorials

[@JH-xc4ur]

I have to say, your videos on photo editing have become my favourite ones to learn from. You're thorough and the flow and pacing is perfect. I teach music and I wish I was this good at teaching.

[@Windsorsillest]

Honestly, I really appreciate your videos. They are straightforward and easy to understand. Thank you for your hard work.

[@katerina7264]

So helpful! I feel like curves can be super hard to mess with once starting out. I've been using GIMP for about a year and I still have a hard time with curves, mostly with changing the shadow colors to balance out the image. But this was really useful and I'll be experimenting with that more often! I would love more tutorial videos with photography~!

[@Equilibrier]

You're explaining extremely well, I'm now understanding concepts that I always ran out from, very interesting, thank you !

[@patlab555]

Great tutorial! I learned many things like the logarithmic option and the use of it, thank you.

[@kungfooman]

This helped me so much kickstarting my Gimp knowledge, thank you a lot... I like to drag around the color picker so I know which color area I have to change a certain portion of the image

[@ShizzleMyChizzle]

Your tutorials are gold!

[@comicsandstuffofficial]

awesome video...wanted to say thanks for your tutorials...before waching your channel...my logo was garbage...but thanks to you its a little better now lol...looking forward to your future videos!

[@JulesMoyaert_photo]

You are a very good teacher. Thank you. A favor: could you please find a way to highlight your pointer or make it bigger/colored? Sometimes, it's difficult to follow it.

[@hobbybaschtler7896]

Thanks alot for your videos, it's a great help.

[@sterlingwallstrum8975]

Great walkthrough!

[@Ruukster]

Verry Enlightening! Thank you!

[@deanjones2525]

Thank you. I learned a lot.

[@parshugyanram136]

Nice Tutorial

[@trking649]

Another really useful video. A far better tutorial than any other on the subject. My only reservation is using that very dark background - it makes the histogram almost invisible.

[@johnb5033]

For those left wondering logarithmic histograms gives more weight to smaller values visually making it easier to see lower intensity values that might otherwise be missed on a linear scale. A linear histogram shows the data as it is without any emphasis.

[@admiraledgeseawolves1833]

I have a question that I hope you can help me with. I work on my laptop so I don't use the mouse. How can I use the Path Tool when my ability is confined to the pad surface on the Laptop and of course shortcut keys? I hope you can help and I would be grateful for a reply.

[@ibnsaeed9174]

Thank you so much

[@CourtWatchAu]

Great lesson tahnkyou

[@weijiat3641]

Is this curve tool for colour channels (red, green, blue) any different compare with the colour balance?

[@altontorres9676]

is color balance, levels, and curves essentially the the same tool? if so why use more than one of those tools per image?

[@karinblair1367]

Great video, where did you get your laptop stand?

[@Visleaf]

Thanks for the part around 9:30

[@WJS774]

I prefer the logarithmic histogram in basically all cases, because often the highlights and shadows in an image are much smaller than the midtones, and can be hard to see on a linear histogram. Getting the white and black points right is a lot easier if you can see the full range of the image.

[@gerobokdapur8165]

Thanks 👍👍

[@hallfighter7]

Awesome video. I shoot primarily black and white film but I do venture into color film sometimes. The issue I often run into with color is that when I scan the film, the colors don't look right. Sometimes there is way too much magenta or green. Sometimes the colors just look "off" - I don't really know how else to describe it. I know that the Curves tool holds the solution to this problem but I struggle with the execution. With three different color channels and a value channel, there are just too many possibilities and I don't know where to start. Can anyone recommend a video that offers a procedural method to use curves to "correct" the colors in a photo?

[@peterliba9038]

Thank you for the informative videos. I have a question. After updating gimp I lost the color of the tools in the toolbox. Everything works fine but the icons are all black and grey. How do I change the view to get the color icons back? Thanks again for the great videos.

[@quasarsphere]

Edit > Preferences > Interface > Icon theme

[@IRBInfoTec]

Please Make video on Gimp retouching

[@wisskier]

Perfect, is this tool the best to correct images where the camera's light temp was improperly set?

[@DaviesMediaDesign]

The curves tool can certainly be used for that. I also recommend checking out the "Color Temperature" tool (Colors>Color Temperature).

[@HogbergPhotography]

How do I open the curves adjustment tool?

[@ewob52h74]

@Bloomin Onion Pretty obvious even to us noobs. Color>Curves

[@rickw7523]

Hi, I tried this but get very red blushy cheeks everytime, how do I correct this?

[@danilosilva7051]

It is better to adjust black and white points before adding any point on the curve. By working on the channels one by one you can also remove color invasions (color correction). You only need to pay attention to your image. In this case it is normal to get more green as the image has trees in the background. Curves is my favorite tool to do contrast, bright, color correction and so many tasks. It is a powerful tool! It would be nice if Gimp has a superimposition colored view of the channels on the histogram and also the clipping view, like Photoshop.

[@WJS774]

The histogram in the levels/curves tool doesn't have RGB, but the dockable histogram window does.

[@danilosilva7051]

@@WJS774 You are right. I can see RGB channels in the histogram window and the changes in curves reflect right away in histogram. The visualization of clipping would be nice though.

[@WJS774]

@@danilosilva7051 Yeah best you're going to do there is just keep an eye out for spikes at the extreme ends when adjusting things.

[@happystar1000]

I saved a few curves I created, as presets, so I don't have to redraw them for each edit. eg the S- curve, a shadow lift curve. a lighten, and a darken curve

[@lesserknownfacts7849]

Post them on Github please

[@robertleeimages]

I'd love one done editing a milky way

[@sqtapnic]

Is that a 1.2gb size photo?

[@vmax2587]

How did make the toolbox a single column one? Mine does not go less than 2

[@DaviesMediaDesign]

You have to move the Tool Options

[@vmax2587]

@@DaviesMediaDesign I did that, it's still not happening

[@DaviesMediaDesign]

Did you update to the latest version?

[@vmax2587]

@@DaviesMediaDesign oh no I haven't!! 😬 Gee thanks!! 😁

[@eltonwild5648]

Where do you find those photos with those gorgeous?

[@DaviesMediaDesign]

I took this photo.

[@eltonwild5648]

@@DaviesMediaDesign You are a rockstar sir! Cheers

[@adam912601]

What is this laptop?

[@DaviesMediaDesign]

Dell Inspiron 7577

[@m3rl1on]

if only this tool can be pinned on the side bar there

[@gost]

Use Krita. GIMP does not have adjustment layers and you'll end up learning Krita. And the last one is even more powerful than Photoshop in many aspects.

[@Liofa73]

GIMP has adjustment layers.

[@gost]

@@Liofa73 Those adjustments layers are toys, but not a working instrument. Try Krita and you'll understand what I mean.

[@3runjosh]

crazy how I had to actually google how to find where curves actually is. Gimp...

[@GGG-gf1wf]

Loveee youuu because tbh gimp is a malign program, it’s the main cause of CMSGD ( chronic migrane syndrome of graphic designer)

[@jphish8724]

I just can't FIND curves so... dammit

[@RU-qv3jl]

When you’re adjusting a colour channel the colour range should be of the colour being adjusted. There is no sense in making it for instance red-cyan. You do not add cyan as you drag the curve lower, you are only removing red, which makes the picture look more cyan but you are not adding cyan. You’re editing in RGB space. If you were to use LAB colour then it would make sense to have for example blue and yellow. In RGB it would make no sense to have red go from red to cyan.