When my kids were younger, they had acne. My eldest son Jamie in particular had it really bad. So I know what it’s like when you take incredibly adorable pictures only to discover later that they’ve been ruined by pimples.
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, my husband usually uses Photoshop for these, but since I’m working most of the time in Linux, I use GIMP, which is a free and powerful image editor. It’s important to use the up-to-date version. If your distro installs an older version, download the newest version from the GIMP website or use the Flatpak version.
This picture which I took of my sons Jamie and Jonny while we were in Austin in 2011 shows Jamie with a shocking bloom of blemishes across his right cheek. Jonny, my baby, apparently thinks he’s James Bond. Jamie is not impressed.
Here it is up close and personal.
In GIMP, the best tool for blemishes is the Clone Tool, which is located in the toolbar.
To correct this photo, I used CTRL + click to select a patch of healthy skin near the blemishes with the Clone Tool and began to clone it in. Using a very small regular shaped brush of only about two pixels, making small strokes, I gradually removed the blemishes from his skin. I reduced the Opacity to about 40% to blend the skin tones. Since his face is partially in shade there were several. Then I used the Smudge Tool, which is located directly to the right of the Clone Tool in the default layout, to mix the skin tones together. There’s some stubble growing on his chin, so I stopped short of the tip of the chin, leaving some of the texture in there.
Above is the finished product, with all blemishes removed and Brightness and Contrast and Color Curves correction applied. GIMP saves the day!
Conclusion
Anyone can remove blemishes with GIMP. You just need a little time, some patience, and the right tools.
Living the Linux Lifestyle 