Ape+lust wrote:Guuuuumby! You've joined us, very very cool!
Good pic. I've always hated that painting. Self-serious iconic heroism in a learned-from-Cathy-strips style = WTF?
Yeah, I don't think you saw my post to you because you weren't around for a couple of days, but I took your advice and downloaded Paint.NET and started fiddling with it. The Nelson Muntz add to that dreadful propaganda poster was my first attempt at transparent backgrounds and layers.
It was easy for that particular Muntz pic because it's a crisply drawn cartoon against a white background - easy to lift Nelson off the background. Really, I just used Paint.NET's "magic wand" tool and set transparency for selected area to 100%. For photographic subjects against varied backgrounds, though, it's tougher and magic wand becomes less useful. Is there some way to lift a person out of a photo without resorting to endless pixel-by-pixel transparency twiddling? I realize Paint.NET is not the most sophisticated tool out there, but was curious.
BTW thanks for the tips you gave me! Even doing that simple chop-job was fun.
Re: Baboonapalooza - graphics and multimedia
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:00 pm
by Ape+lust
I installed Pinta, an open-source fork of an earlier version of Paint.NET, to see what you're dealing with and... it's pretty limited. There are only 2 free select tools -- the Magic Wand, which is mostly useless, and the Lasso, which uses the worst method of selection, click and drag. I was going to suggest using layer masks, but that's a feature missing in both programs.
However, you can do a sort of pseudo-mask thing with what you've got. It's easier than trying to drag a border around an object:
Open a new transparent layer on top of your image, then set the opacity on a brush color so you can see through it. Paint over the object you want to clip, alternating with the eraser to refine the shape. Zooming in makes accuracy easier, try doing it if you haven't. When you've got it right, use the Magic Wand in the colored area to create a selection. Then switch to the image layer and use the selection to cut the object.
Here's a video with the details:
I feel bad about about suggesting Paint.NET. It has a good reputation, not just among devotees, but in website reviews. It's pitched as a stripped-down Photoshop, not a dumbed-down one. When you're doing lulzy cutouts though, you don't need a big toolset, just a decent one, and Paint.NET doesn't seem to have it. It doesn't even have an antialiasing option for clipping (developer says it'll land in ver 4), which is a necessity for avoiding that hard-edged look. I'll be installing the other programs I mentioned (the ones I can get to run on a Linux system) to see what they've got. I'll let you know what I find out.
A few tips in the meantime:
When working with cutouts, always use a larger image than you need whenever you can. IOW, cut out a big version and shrink it before inserting into the final image. Image reduction can smooth out the roughness of a cut job.
If you do a cutout and it looks too hard-edged, you can add a little feathering to it:
Duplicate the cutout on another layer and add a mild Gaussian blur to it, about 2-3 pixels. Set the blurred layer behind the original, then merge them together. I used this here:
The kid is already low-resolution (couldn't find a bigger pic) and he looked too sharply delineated, especially next to the blurred out kangaroo, so I added a fuzzed layer behind him. You can see a faint misty halo around him. It's not perfect, but it's an option when you need it.
Re: Baboonapalooza - graphics and multimedia
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 5:13 pm
by Gumby
Thanks Ape+lust! I'm trying your suggestions out now. In the future I'll contact you via your message inbox so as to not clutter up this thread.
You are so bloody good at what you do, you make the rest of us not even bother any more...
No way can I devote the time required to reach your lofty standard.
Cut it out, you bastard! You are creating unemployed for the members of the Universal Unpaid Graphical Satirists Union.
