pophiri

Overall I really like the composition, beautiful couple, 8/10. There is horrizontal banding in the bride's face and the left hand side of the picture. I find this distracting, not sure what your intention was there. Other point, the chin and tip of the bride's nose have been 'over exposed'. This has killed the contrast in this area and drawn attention away from the eyes. Easy to do if you are not careful when adjusting levels and curves.

Here is an easy way without pugins Select paint bucket. Set flood mode to global. Set the colour you want (say blue) as the primary. Set tolerance to pick up as much grey as you want, then click on some black. Voila.

I hadn't tried median before. I can see it rounds the edges, but doesn't blend. Maybe a combination of the two, median to remove rough edges and gausian to blend the edges ? I will download Ed's plugins and have a look. Thanks for the tips.

I'm new too, but this is how I would get a high contrast image as per your artwork. Select the part of the photo you want. For straight b/w, max the contrast, for a slightly softer look, use your curves and make them vertical. Apply a slight gausian blur (rad 1-2) to soften the edges. Assume you can do the rest of the stuff (background, text etc). If not, check out the tuts.

To all those who wrote and updated, or created tutorials and plugins for Paintdotnet, a big heartfelt thanks. I am very new to paintdotnet, and prior to this have always hated paint programs like photoshop and photopaint. I have used them when I had to, but only as a last resort or for improving contrast and removing colour casts from photos. I am a vector drawer through and through. Paintotnet is coverting me. It has a simple and effective interface. It has a limited number of tools so it doesn't overwhelm the noob. Your creativity is really only limited by your imagination. I see lots of requests asking for it to do the things photoshop can do. Please don't turn this lovely program into a photoshop wannabe. Its charm lies in its ease of use. Thanks again, I love the program, put simply IT IS FUN! (ps I will have to create a signature now I know how)