Reba

Beverly Burmeister
Our dog Reba does not like to pose for pictures. This is one of the few good photos we had of her, so I decided to make it into a portrait. This is the original snapshot and the new portrait.

I used GIMP software. I uploaded the picture from a CD, used Image Menu and Scale Image to reduce to 300 x 273 pixels. From Tools panel, Selection Tools I chose Rectangular, and cropped everything except Reba's image. From the Layer menu, I selected Colors and Color Balance. I then decreased brightness and increased the contrast. I wanted to create a border with a hint of blur at the edges. I spent alot of time searching for a way to do this automatically, but I finally chose the Paintbrush option under the Tools menu. I used the caligraphy and circle fuzzy fonts to create a border. I also filled in some color over the light blue area on her left side. I like the result but would like to perfect my technique with practice.