Channels in Gimp (and photoshop) - what are they useful for?

[RobA]

And don't forget you can split am image as HSV in addition to RGB. That will sometimes give better definition for selections (i.e light from dark, regardless of hue) with the magic want tool.

-Rob A>

[RPMiller]

You'll find that the red channel contains most of the contrast, the green channel contains most of the detail, and the blue channel contains most of the noise. So if you've got a really noisy image, you can apply a filter like Despeckle or Dust and Scratches to just the noisy Blue channel instead of the whole image to clean it up, which'll keep you from losing detail, or sharpen your image by applying an Unsharp Mask to just the details of the green channel.

Channels are also really good for building complex selections instead of just saving them.

And don't forget you can split am image as HSV in addition to RGB.

These are awesome tips!!!!!! As soon as I can I'll rep you both. Oh how I wish I knew this stuff years ago...

[RobA]

magic want tool.

hehe! I like my own typos - I think we all have a magic want tool

-Rob A>

[torstan]

I agree. Those are the kind of tips that I just don't seem to find in tutorials. Thanks for those.