Gimp: Free your hair - how it works

A common step in image editing is to crop hair from photos. In this guide, we show you how this works in Gimp.

Gimp: Free your hair - so it'll work

There are a few steps to free hair in Gimp. However, these are not very complicated. For a better understanding, you can also follow the individual steps in our picture gallery.

Open the image in Gimp and first duplicate the layer. You can make the original layer invisible by clicking on the eye symbol.
Right-clicking on the level opens the context menu. Select "Add layer mask", check the "Gray level copy of layer" and confirm with "Add".
If you click on the layer mask while holding down the [Alt] key, it will become visible. Next, you should increase the contrast between the hair and the background. To do this, navigate to "Colors"> "Curves" and change the curve so that the contrast is pronounced but the hair is still visible.
In the next step, trace the outline of the areas you want to keep. To do this, use the brush tool and choose black as the foreground color.
You can now trace the straight outline using the "Free selection" tool. Once you have made your selection, go to "Edit with Foreground Color" in the "Edit" menu.
Then click again on the layer mask while holding down the [Alt] key to make the mask invisible again.
To see the original image again, you have to click on "Invert" in the "Colors" menu.
You may need to rework small areas. To do this, choose the brush tool with a fine tip and reduced opacity. Use black to remove any remaining areas. If you have removed too much, simply paint over with a white brush and bring the areas back.
The hair is now free, so you can choose any background for your picture.