GIMP Fx-Foundry Scripts Pack | Installation and Usage Guide

GIMP Fx-Foundry as the name suggests a foundry for graphics. It is a huge knapsack of 100+ image processing scripts. Each of these scripts adds an individual feature to work with the GIMP. To be honest, FX-Foundry is a whole suite of plug-ins in itself. The number of scripts in this pack is so large that I doubt anybody will use all of these GIMP scripts in the whole life.

Now, the collection of scripts is very large and we cannot talk about all of them so, we are going to talk about the few we use most often. We’ve found the Photo and Layer very useful, but here we are going to talk about only the ones listed under the Photo. Let’s get started.

 

How to Install GIMP Fx-Foundry for Windows

Installing Fx-Foundry is like a piece of cake. You do not have to touch the settings to install it. All you need to do is,

Step 1: Download GIMP Fx-Foundary from here.

Step 2: A zip file will be downloaded. Unzip it and extract the files out.

Step 3: Copy the extracted files to C:/users/”username”/.gimp-2.8/scripts.

Step 4: Restart GIMP letting the changes to take place. A new menu “Fx-Foundary” should be available now.

 

How to Install GIMP Fx-Foundry for Linux

Step 1: Download GIMP Fx-Foundary from here.

Step 2: A zip file will be downloaded. Copy the zip to /home/”username”/.gimp-2.8/scripts.

Step 3: Unzip it and extract the files out. Select all files and right-click > properties > permissions.

Step 4: Set Permissions as required for particular user/group, to “read and write” and tick the checkbox “allow executing file as program”.

Step 5: Restart GIMP letting the changes to take place.

This is all, a new menu option will appear in the main menu once you restart or open the GIMP. After downloading let’s now talk about the feature list. Here it is

This list is not just a wide list but also very handy. Since we cannot talk about all of them so let’s come straight to the ones we are going to talk about. The photo menu offers a wide list of effects to help you transform your photos into the most desired ones. There are a number of effects you could add to your image and I must say, if you are to explore them all, you might need days!!! Let’s simplify it for you and talk about the few we liked the most.

 

Bercovich Lomo

This is a type of Lomo Effect that converts photographs by adding a bit of contrast, brightness and color tone into the photo making it appear a little brighter and color-rich. It provides the image a new and a better look.

In its dialogue box, you could select the amount of fringe offset i.e. how much of frame you want to add to your image. You can also select whether you want to boost fringe by making the frame appear more wide and clear or not.

 

LOMO Effect

LOMO Effect like the Bercovich Lomo adds a new effect providing the image a changed look. This effect as the name suggests very similar to the Bercovich Lomo but still differs in many ways.

In the dialogue box of LOMO effect, you could choose if you want to work on the same image or on the copy. Also, you can flatten your image if you want to.

 

Bercovich Lomo vs LOMO Effect

Now, there are two LOMO Effects in the list. Let’s find out how they are different from each other.

The difference is very evident and observable as Bercovich Lomo adds a lighter color with more brightness whereas LOMO Effect adds a darker color with more contrast and comparatively lesser brightness.

 

Black and White Photo

This effect converts your colored image into black and white. This is a very basic effect with the help of which you can drain out all the colors from your image making it look more of black and white.

In this effect, you can manually select the darkness, contrast, and mottle providing your image the desired look. Darken, makes your image dark, Contrast helps you to add contrast to your image and Mottle removes colors from your image making it look a bit more stained or old. You can also remove focus from your image by ticking the Defocus check box.

 

Cross Light

It is a kind of effect that adds light to your image. It makes the light falling on your image scatter making the area with light falling on it to glow.

You can adjust the length of light falling, start angle of the light, number of lights falling on the image etc. You can also adjust the threshold of light falling on your image.

 

Cross Processing Effect

Cross Processing is a type of effect that helps you to overcast a color over your image. You can select the color you want to overcast according to your choice. So, it is a very helpful tool if you want to tweak the colors of your image.

It offers you flexibility to choose the color of the overlay. You can also select if you want to flatten your image or not. It also provides you the freedom to work on the same image or on the copy.

 

Diffusion Filter

Diffusion Filter adds a very nice effect into the image. It smoothens the image and makes it look more like wedding image. This effect adds a filter to the image and makes your image look a bit hazier.

In this effect, you can adjust the radius, level, and intensity of your effect and you can tick the checkbox in front of negative if you want to add a negative like effect into your image i.e. it darkens your image a bit making it appear like it is a negative of a photograph.

 

Eg Black and White

This is another effect to make your image look black and white. This effect automatically converts your image black and white and you do not have to manually adjust any aspect of your image.

In its dialogue box, it offers you an option to choose which black and white conversion you want to use. There are a number of black and white conversions like B&W + Red Filter, B&W (GIMP), B&W (Channel Mixer) etc listed in the dropdown. You can select any one according to your preferences.

 

Eg Duotone Simulation

As the name suggests Eg Duotone Simulation provides the image a dual tone. This is mostly used to bring middle tones and highlights of an image out.

It helps you to color your image in two tones and also allows you to choose the second color of your choice. In the dialogue box, it offers you to select the tone, opacity, and color of the simulation. You can also select if you want to flatten or turn your image to black and white.

 

Eg Infrared Simulation

It is a Photo Effect that overlays the image with an Infrared layer. It adds a layer of Infrared light over the image and makes it look more like an image with B&W + Red Filter.

In its dialogue box, it offers you options to adjust the IR layer opacity, contrast of the IR layer. Also, it provides you options to blur and flatten your image if you want to.

 

Film Grain

Film Grain is a type of effect that adds a film over your image making it look more like solid. It adds a texture like a grain of wood or stone over the image and makes it appear like it has been carved out of stone or wood.

It offers you to adjust your Grain Size, Blur Amount and a Midpoint of the effect. You can also add a layer mask to your image if you want to.

 

Make Wonderful

Make Wonderful is a type of effect that adds a blurry and whitish effect to the image. It makes your image look very bright but proportionally blur thus making the image vague.

In the dialogue box, it offers you options like Flou which makes your image blur, Luminosite which adds brightness to the image and Contraste which adds contrast to your image. You can adjust these aspects accordingly to make your image suit your taste. Also, you can flatten your image by checking the box against Aplatir l’image.

 

Midnight Sepia

Sepia, as the name suggest, adds a reddish brown color into your image. It saturates the color completely into the image and makes it appear like it has been taken like that only. It makes the image look like as it has been taken in the moonlight during the night.

In its dialogue box, you can adjust hue, saturation, lightness, opacity and color according to your taste.You can also select if you want to flatten, desaturate your image.

 

Old Photo

This effect makes your image look like it has been taken in the old times. It makes the image look old. Not only this it extracts out the colors from the image and makes it appear a little dull or stained.

It offers you options to use Borders, Sepia, Defocus and Mottle into your image. You could also adjust the Mottle size and border size of your image according to your taste.

 

Roy Lichtenstein

This effect makes your images look more like they are printed in a newspaper. The image appears more like color deficient printed on a bad quality of paper.

It has a very large dialogue box with a plenty of options like Base Layer Opacity, Contrast, NewsPrint Effect etc. You can change these option settings to explore more of this effect.

 

Sepia Toning

Well, to be frank, I could not access this effect as every time I tried using it this error message got flashed.

 

Simple Duotone

Simple Duotone is very similar to Eg Duotone Simulation. It provides your image a dual tone look but this time the toning is a bit more automated or you can say a bit less manual. You just have to select the second color, rest is managed automatically by the tool.

In its dialogue box, you get options like tint color and flatten image etc. You do not need to adjust any other aspects of the effect, just the color you want to tone your image with.

 

Soft Focus

This effect adds a soft focus to your image. It blurs your image making it a little foggy. It softens your image and makes it appear a bit more dreamy or dusky.

In its dialogue box, you will get an option to adjust the blur amount on a scale between 1-100.

 

Tone Mapping

Tone Mapping helps you to adjust the tone of your image by adjusting the color combination, brightness and contrast of your image making it appear more like eye pleasing. It adjusts all of these aspects automatically and you need not adjust them manually.

In its dialogue box, you get options to adjust the opacity of the tone. You can adjust the amount by which you want to blur your image on a scale from 100-500.

 

Vintage Film Effect

Vintage Film Effect is a type of effect that makes your image look more like a Vintage Image. This effect makes the image look more like an old but valuable property. This effect makes an image a little dull and mottled.

In its dialogue box, you can select whether you want to flatten your image or not. You do not have to tweak any settings to apply this effect to your image, everything is managed by the tool itself.

 

These are the effects you are going to find under the Photo Menu. All of these have their uniqueness and different use. Thus, I must say GIMP Fx-Foundry is a huge pack or rather a complete repository of image processing scripts that adds a lot of functionality to work with GIMP.

In this article, I tried explaining all the photo effects you get with GIMP Fx-Foundry. If you still have any ambiguity, questions or even the suggestions, feel free to reach us through our comments section below.