What applications are you guys using for laying out coloring schemes on the computer. I sit programming all day, but don't have access to any good packages. Are there any shareware or freeware packages out there that works well for this?

I'm not having much success with the default Windows Paint.

Any suggestions and recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks,

tychoc

It ain't free, but Photoshop Elements can be had cheaply, and it's SO good that I prefer it to the full version of Photoshop for my applications at work--photo retouching, panoramas, and plan rendering(granted, I'm in site planning and design, not professional graphic design, but I need something intuitive and flexible that gives good results). It's well worth the $50 or so.

You can try the Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program) also, its full featured and free... requires a bit more work to setup and may not be the type of interface you are used to.

[link]http://www.gimp.org[/link]

You'll kill yourself trying to use paint for graphics. You're better off with pen and paper. I use Micrografx Windows Draw, which is an excellent, cheap, easy to use graphics tool. Unfortunately, it's no longer sold. I've also used PowerPoint for airplane graphics, but I wouldn't recommend it.

I had a copy of Photoshop Elements "floating" around and started looking at it. I was under the impression this tool mostly had to do with touching up photos and creating clever images.

Right now I loaded up the template for my plane (thanks RCKen), but I can't seem to be able to find the tool to draw a simple line. It does, however, nicely fill in whatever color I choose between the lines, unlike Paint which proved worthless.

Are there tools hidden somewhere that allows me to draw lines and shapes?

Thanks,

tychoc

Photoshop Elements is a really good program. User freindly but does have a steep learning curve at first but once you get used to it you will discover how powerful it really is. I have Elements and Photoshop CS. Elements has pretty much everything PS has but in a consumer package.

I use Photoshop CS-2 and I'm not sure if PS-Elements has the same tool layour, but these couple of screenshots might help you

Joseph

Thanks, I found the line tool. Now my problem is that when I draw a new line on the template and then proceede to try to color the section bound by two new lines, the color fills the whole outline and doesn't stay within the newly drawn lines.

Haven't figured out how to make the new line behave like a boundary for the coloring tool.

-tychoc

All right, I'll explain what I would do on CS-2, I don't know if the procedure on Elements is the same, but must be very alike

1.- Trace your first line
2.- Trace your second line
3.- Using the marquee or poligonal lasso tool, trace an area where you want your filling
4.- Create a new layer (without deselecting)
5.- Use the paint bucket to fill the selected area

This images might help

joesabido,

Thanks for the help and pictures. With your explenations I was able to read the right sections in the help file and figure out the layering. I think I know enough now to play with the layout.

regards,

tychoc

Right on dude, glad I could be of help

I use visio myself. Easy to add shapes and fill them and such. Can also change colors and what not pretty easily... downside is making up the template if you don't already have one. Took me about 45 minutes with a yard stick any my SSE plans to create a decent visio template.

Paint Shop Pro

I bought the first version for $29.95 about 7 years ago. It's usually only in that price range about once a year, around the time the new version comes out.

It's been an excellent painting/drawing application. Almost all the better applications of a type will do everything that all the others will do. They have to or they don't sell. PSP does everything I've ever wanted to do (fade fill, shaping lightning bolts, graphics overlays, etc etc) and done them easily.

Every one of them works each function very differently. In other words, common functions will be done differently. The idea is that you have to learn how each paint program draws a line, and every program will do it a different way. It's a real pain, but almost every computer application ever written tries to do everything their own "special" way. I guess they want to be unique. Or maybe they think we're too dumb to notice and will think theirs has something special others don't. About the only time one is less than another is when it's shareware or freeware that hasn't been developed much at all. Any application that's been around enough to be popular is going to do everything you expect or want to do.

I just created a set of decals for a model that's being refinished. I drew everything with PSP's drawing tools. In other words, I didn't simply scan and print (it's hard to fit a model aiplane into a scanner ) the individual decals. My set was actually "better" than the originals. I added rivets and shading to make some stuff more detailed and realistic looking. And it took me less than an hour to do. And anything, any decal, I can think up, I can do.

Any paint program will take awhile to learn if it's powerful. "Powerful" means full featured, and that means lots of things to learn. And all the popular paint programs are full featured.

BTW, I've used PSP with the Great Planes' REAL FLIGHT G3 simulator. That sim allows you to paint your own designs on the models in it. When I got back into RC last year, I wanted to work the rust off my thumbs with a sim before risking any balsa. But I also wanted to "fly" the models that I was building.

I had a Phoenix Sukhoi and a World Models Ultimate I was building. Their paint schemes weren't in G3. So I took about a half hour and painted them into the sim. It's BIG TIME kewl to fly your real models in the sim. And PSP did the job easily.