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GIMP Lomo Plugin

This is a slighly modified version of an old GIMP Lomo plugin I’ve used for ages that will now work with the new GIMP 2.4 release thanks to some advice I remembered reading on the GIMP User mailing list. The original plugin is by Francois Le Lay but hasn’t been updated since 2005. It’s a basic script but it’s very effective. Just be warned, if you resize your image, make sure you right click on the Vignette layer and click “Layer to image size” before the resize. Otherwise odd things happen!

Download

Download gimplomo.scm.

Install

Installation is easy. Simply copy gimplomo.scm into your .gimp-2.4/scripts/ folder and restart the GIMP. It will appear as Image->Filters->Light and Shadow->Lomo.

Example Images

Below are two before and after examples of what the Lomo plugin does to images. I have also posted fake lomo photos in the past which should give a really good idea of what it’s capable of.


Before and After Lomo images

Why the change to Script-fu?

Script-fu in GIMP 2.4 requires that variables be defined before using them which has broken a lot of Script-fu scripts unfortunately. In theory it’s a great change because it tightens up on sloppy programming but it hurts the end user!

By Donncha

Donncha Ó Caoimh is a software developer at Automattic and WordPress plugin developer. He posts photos at In Photos and can also be found on Google+ and Twitter.

63 replies on “GIMP Lomo Plugin”

I didn’t realize The Gimp still used Scheme for extension. I guess it’s been a while since I’ve looked though. I’ve had the desire to do this for a while but never any real motivation. Thanks!

For the photo-illiterate like myself, can you give a basic definition of lomo? At first I thought it must be something like LOLcats, but I see that it works some magic in the photos in your example, but I have no idea what is the criteria to apply this magic.

Lloyd – I thought I had posted a link to the Wikipedia page on Lomography, but no, I hadn’t. Here it is. Lomo cameras were cheap cameras with bad lenses but they created unusual effects when used. They’ve developed quite a cult following!

Technically, this plugin creates a vignetting effect, it darkens the edges and brightens the center, while increasing the contrast of the image. It has been overused but it still remains a quick way of adding a bit of sparkle to a snapshot. Today’s picture, Dunnes Stores for Better Value has the lomo treatment. If the gradient of the sky is just right it can be attractive, or it can make the sky look all banded because Jpeg doesn’t store enough data in 8 bits ..

Marco, Matt
Got the same error, but semmed to go away if I let gimp change the colour profile to sRGB instead of the camera profile…

The endingx error appears to happen if you use a portrait oriented photo, landscape ones are fine, so presumably happens in the section of code that checks for that. From a quick look at the code, it looks to me like endingx goes out of scope when the ‘if’ clause is exited, but I’m certainly no scheme expert.

Why is it that 95% of scripts and plugins won’t work in 2.4? and then most of the fixes are suppose to work but they won’teither? ! If the “pretty” new interface of GIMP is the only thing that works, why the hell bother?

To fix the error on double vigneting I had to change the set! to let* as following:

from:

(if (= adv TRUE)
( begin
(set! hvignette (car (gimp-layer-copy vignette 0)))
(gimp-layer-set-opacity hvignette 80)
(gimp-image-add-layer img hvignette -1)
)
)

to


(if (= adv TRUE)
( begin
(let* ((hvignette (car (gimp-layer-copy vignette 0))))
(gimp-layer-set-opacity hvignette 80)
(gimp-image-add-layer img hvignette -1)
)
)
)

Nice filter, thanks! 🙂

[…] Lomo is a plug-in that automatically oversaturates an image, taking its name from the popular Russian camera with the same effect. It works well, but it also highlights a drawback of many GIMP plug-ins: they often lack preview capabilities, making it hard to determine what exactly your changes have wrought. […]

Bruno – I tried that fix for the double vignette but it did weird things. First of all, the plugin didn’t seem to do anything, then when I clicked on layers it applied the lomo effect, but it was impossible to ctrl-z/undo the lomo effect. I wonder if it would be safer to remove the “double vignette” checkbox altogether. The dark overlay layer can be duplicated to get the same effect anyway!

Film Grain Script is still the first one, because I scripted just a description from gimpguru.com. But if you have any suggestions, make a comment there.

If u have both scripts u can add
(script-fu-grain img black_vignette 2 100 128)
to line 281 of gimplomo.scm. Then the black vignette will be made grainy automatically.

Hello!
I love the plug-in. Is there a way to batch edit photos with lomo? Doing them one by one gets to be a bit time-consuming. I added a plug-in for a batch processor, but it does not work for lomo. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Not using your plugin yet, but I will soon, and I just wanted to say “thanks” for this so-cool stuff/idea!!
jahzz13

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