Editing family photo album with GIMP

One project that I am working on is a family album. On my visit to Canada recently I took the opportunity to re-photograph prints in the albums of several family members. The quality would have been so much better if I had been able to scan them, but snapping them with my 3 megapixel camera is all I was able to do in the time. Now back at home, I am working on putting together a collection that will be put on CDs so everyone will be able to have a copy of the "core collection".

A good number of the photographs were taken in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some are faded, torn, or creased - but at least they aren't missing. My photoediting skills are minimal but I am patching tears and creases, removing spots, and improving contrast and sharpness a bit.

I am using the GIMP as my photoediting software. It's free, open source and will do the job. Being an Impatient Beginner, of course I have not read the full GIMP manual. Only what is directly relevant to what I am doing sticks in my mind, so there is no point in my trying to learn a complete technique in one go. I need small tutorials, sort of sound bite tutorials, that I can grab and run with. There are some good GIMP tutorials on the internet but finding them can be time consuming.

I have the intention of writing a few 'sound bite' GIMP tutorials myself. These would be very basic, matching my skill level, and I would write them as part of my learning process rather than from the POV of a GIMP wizard. I intend to put them on this blog along with links to other tutorials that I find useful.

But the weather is good and the garden is calling me, so maybe tomorrow.