So I kept seeing this Eye of Ra meme everywhere last week - you know, that glowing Egyptian eye slapped onto random photos making everything look mystical. Looked cool as hell, so I grabbed my laptop yesterday thinking "how hard could this be?" Spoiler: almost threw my mouse twice.
Step One: Hunting Down the Right Eye Pic
First dumb mistake: just typed "Eye of Ra" into Google Images. Big error. Got hieroglyphs, museum artifacts, even a damn cat photo. Realized I needed "Eye of Ra transparent background" after wasting 20 minutes. Found a decent PNG where the black parts were actually see-through. Saved that sucker to my desktop.
The Messy Part: Slapping It Onto Stuff
Opened good old free GIMP software. Dragged in my nephew's graduation photo first. Pasted the eye PNG right on top. Damn thing covered his whole face! Resized it smaller... way too small. Played with that corner-dragging thing like a madman till it fit over one eye. Looked crooked as hell. Hit the "rotate" tool and turned it slightly like adjusting a crooked painting.
Three things that almost broke me:
- The eye kept having this ugly white box around it. Forgot PNGs can cheat having backgrounds.
- Couldn't figure how to make it glow. Almost gave up till I saw "drop shadow" option. Slapped a soft yellow glow behind it.
- Saved as JPG first - glow turned into pixelated crap. Had to redo as PNG.
That Sweet "Aha!" Moment
After cursing at layer panels for an hour, I accidentally clicked "layer opacity." Slid that bad boy down to 70% and boom! Suddenly you could kinda see my nephew's actual eye behind the glowing Egyptian one. Looked properly cursed. Saved it as "nephew_ra_final_FINAL_*" out of spite.
Threw it into Discord to roast my nephew. Friends thought it was some new filter. Jokes on them - now I got a folder of Ra eyes on cat pictures, traffic signs, even my neighbor's ugly garden gnome. Your turn. Go mess up some photos.
