Looking at Planet Debian, you could say many debian developers don't get holidays or spend the whole day kept out from sun.

Wrong!

Most hackergotchis are just insufficiently color balanced because most digital cameras have poor color balance or because scanning pics often result in poor quality images. So, here is a quick practical guide on how to improve photos with the Gimp 2.0, based on two hackergotchis from Planet Debian.

Before. Norbert's face could hardly be recognized because it is too dark. This picture is probably taken from a scan of a photo taken by night.

After. Open this file with the Gimp, select the Layer/Colors/Brightness-Contrast menu item and add both contrast and lightness. Be bold. Then you will have an saturated image you need to adjust. Select the Layer/Colors/Hue-Saturation menu item and lower the saturation. And voilà, you have a shiny new hackergotchi picturing a handsome man ! Of course, there are now some white glitches that are magnified and the photo is somewhat blurred, but this can still be fixed.

Before. Mako's face just looks like he is in front of his computer or he is sick. This is perhaps because of the photoflash.

After. Open this file with the Gimp, select the Layer/Colors/Hue-Saturation and add some saturation. Then you'll have a more colored face but too blue. Select the Layer/Colors/Color Balance, move the sliders to add some red and yellow to midtones and voila ! You have a much more appealing face !