free software

Martron

not looking for pirate software or anything.

i am just wondering if there is a free program i can download to filter out a colour.

for example i want to have a photo in black and white but the only colour i want to show through is a red laser if this makes sense.

thanks

Martron

AnCatDubh

the gimp will do this and millions of other things.

basically you will be looking to learn about layers and masks. Try googling it (careful when you google things with the words gimp and mask in it :eek:) and trawling youtube for tutorials. Another good place is meetthegimp.org for video tutorials.

hope that helps.

KarmaGarda

I've used a few of the free ones. The Gimp has excellent features, but can be a pain in the royal ass to use. Depending on how basic the editing you may get away with paint.net. From the sounds of the level of editing you need I would advise paint.net just for it's sheer usability. I only use gimp if I want to do a lot of processing, because it has a lot of features and... well, it's free too!

pullandbang

Your looking for Selective Colourisation and the Gimp coupled with this tutorial will make it very simple for you - all free and legal.

KarmaGarda

My first thoughts are Paint.net can do the exact same as that tutorial, including layers/transparency/etc. To me, gimp just sounds like an overhead for just a small requirement. I often use paint.net for little jobs like that, because the gimp can be such a pain in the butt

Anyway, if you do end up with The Gimp (seems the majority are recommending it) and are at the stage where you're banging you're head against the wall (which I'm fairly sure you will be) here's my 1 major tip:

Never edit jpgs directly. Immediately save them to xcf files and then edit.

I've found that on certain PCs and operating systems it can crash a hell of a lot in jpg mode depending on the steps you follow. It's a bit misleading because The gimp will make it look like you can do all of the above to a jpg and just crash with an error (I've found that it crashes more often if I start adding layers to a jpg) Whatever way The Gimp edits jpgs in memory it doesn't like this very much.

Bottom line, convert it to xcf format first.

Martron

i downloaded paint.net. just to give it a shot. is there anywhere there is a tutorial for the colour selection?

KarmaGarda

1st way is the same as the Gimp Tutorial that was linked.

1. Select all on the current layer (ctrl+a).
2. Copy (ctrl+c)
3. Edit -> paste into new layer
4. Adjustments -> Black & white
5. Use the eraser tool to erase the B&W part you want to remain in colour.
Note: you can change the brush with at the top to delete larger/smaller areas.
6. Zoom in for more accurate deleting. (for the part around the edges.)


Sometimes I might do it a different way:

1. Select all on the current layer (ctrl+a).
2. Copy (ctrl+c)
3. Edit -> paste into new layer
4. Select the original layer again (click on it in the layer window)
5. Adjustments -> Black & white
6. Select the new layer again (click on it in the layer window)
7. Delete everything apart from the objects you wish to remain in colour.
8. Zoom in for more accurate deleting. (for the part around the edges.)
9. Change the opacity of the new layer to about 200 (click on the layer in the layer window and press F4). This will make it blend slightly better.

For me the 2nd way usually works much better for selective colouring. You can keep messing with the opacity on step 6 until it's how you want it.


There's also a few good sites for tutorials as well, let me see if I can find it for you.

KarmaGarda

This is 1 site with some tutorials. You need to register to see them, which is a nuiscance, but it's still free:

http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/index.php