Turn Photos into Oil Paintings with GIMP GEGL Oilify

Transforming landscape photography into classic oil paintings is a straightforward creative process achievable with GIMP’s built-in GEGL Oilify filter. This guide outlines the exact steps to convert any landscape photo into traditional artwork, detailing how to prepare your base layers, fine-tune the brushstroke settings, enhance color vibrancy, and add finishing touches for an authentic painted aesthetic.

Step 1: Prepare Your Image Layer

  1. Open your landscape photo in GIMP by navigating to File > Open.
  2. Go to the Layers panel on the right side of the screen.
  3. Right-click the original background layer and select Duplicate Layer. Working on a duplicated layer ensures a non-destructive workflow, allowing you to blend or revert changes at any time.

Step 2: Open the GEGL Oilify Filter

  1. Ensure the duplicated layer is active in the Layers panel.
  2. Navigate to Filters > Artistic > Oilify. Alternatively, you can go to Tools > GEGL Operation and select gegl:oilify from the operation dropdown menu.
  3. Make sure the Preview checkbox is enabled in the dialog window to see adjustments in real time.

Step 3: Adjust the Brushstroke Settings

The Oilify dialog provides parameters to simulate physical paint application:

  • Mask Radius (Brush Size): This slider dictates the size of the simulated brushstrokes. A smaller radius (between 3 and 8) preserves finer details like tree branches and foliage. A larger radius (10 or higher) creates broad, expressive strokes best suited for skies, water, and distant hills.
  • Exponent: Controls the blending strength and grouping of neighboring colors. Increasing the exponent creates smoother paint gradients, while lowering it yields rougher, more distinct patches of color.
  • Use Intensity Algorithm / Color Modes: Depending on your GIMP version, toggle these settings to change whether brightness or direct color values dictate the stroke direction and flow.

Once the landscape achieves a balanced balance between painterly strokes and recognizable forms, click OK to apply the filter.

Step 4: Enhance Color and Contrast

Traditional oil paintings typically feature richer pigments and deeper tonal contrast than standard photographs.

  1. Go to Colors > Saturation and increase the scale slightly (around 1.15 to 1.30) to give the foliage, sky, and earth tones a richer look.
  2. Go to Colors > Curves and create a gentle S-curve by pulling the highlights slightly up and the shadows slightly down to add depth to the digital paint.

Step 5: Blend and Add Canvas Texture

  1. Opacity Adjustment: If the oil effect obscures too many important focal points, reduce the opacity of the filtered layer in the Layers panel to roughly 80–90% to let crisp details from the original photograph show through.
  2. Apply Canvas (Optional): To simulate a real linen or cotton canvas backing, select the top layer, go to Filters > Artistic > Apply Canvas, select your preferred texture direction and depth, and click OK.

Step 6: Export the Final Artwork

When your landscape painting is complete, go to File > Export As, select your preferred image format (such as JPEG or PNG), choose your quality settings, and save your final piece.