Can you put codes/ figures/references on colors

[Santiago]

I use paint.net for pixel art and bead art, i would like to know if you can pur a name, number or form on single color pixels in order to make things easier when working on a project, this would help when you have two similar colors on a very close range, for example, 2 tones of a yellow.

 

The image can lead to a better example of what im asking.

 

sorry for average english, im not native english user.

Thank you beforehand

 

[MJW]

Someone else requested this a while ago. Unfortunately, I don't believe there's currently anything in Paint.Net to do that. I think it would be an interesting plugin to write. I've got a backlog of ideas I'm working on, so I can't guarantee anything, but if I can find the time, I'll try to come up with something.

[Eli]

I do not know if this can help you but some time ago @Joshua Lamusga made a little tool Pixel Replacer to substitute similar pixels of an image with another one. But you will have to do it color by color. It can take a while if you have a few hundred colors in your image.

 

You can also try @Ego Eram Reputo's Tile world to replace one by one your pixels.

 

Or you can wait for @MJW 's idea.  

[MJW]

Perhaps I should mention that any solution I come up with will be limited to 96 colors, which is the number of colors in the PDN palette. I somewhat expect that most art or craft projects use fewer than 96 different colors.

[LionsDragon]

@MJW, I'm just gonna put in my two cents as an artist and teacher: yes.   Off the top of my head, I can only think of three possible situations that MIGHT call for more: beading/perling, needlepoint, and graphed crochet. However, these would be insanely elaborate projects and tbh, I've never actually seen someone do it.

 

*ponders more* The Crocheted Coral Reef probably has more than 96 colors, but it also couldn't be graphed out in a program like PDN.

 

However...making such a plugin would greatly increase the prospective userbase. Most graphing programs are pretty pricey.

[MJW]

Thanks for the input, @LionsDragon. One thing I don't want to do is spend time writing a plugin that's not useful. I welcome other responses from LionsDragon on anyone else on what features would be needed to make a numbering plugin useful.

 

BTW, what does it mean to "graph out" something? I know nothing about crocheting.

 

EDIT: I did a web search for " Crocheted Coral Reef ." Very impresive, but far beyond anything I'd endeavor to support with a PDN plugin.

[LionsDragon]

Oh believe me, this would be REALLY useful. I can think of several people I know personally who would be interested in it.

 

To "graph out" just means to create a design in a grid/on graph paper, with each square representing a bead, stitch, or stitch cluster. Sorry. I zoned out into fiber mode there for a second.

[MJW]

@LionsDragon, what is the usual format for the grided design the plugin would process to create a numbered grid? Is it one pixel per bead/stitch/etc., or is it a graph consisting of multiple-pixel colored squares?

[Eli]

I do not know if this is the standard format but it looks cool. It shows not only the colors but the number of beads needed as well.

Edited September 14, 2017 by Eli

[MJW]

I hope that's not the standard format. All that shading may make for an attractive image, but it's not ideal for automatic processing. It would take a colorimeter to distinguish between Orange and Dark Orange.

 

EDIT: Because of the way it's shaded, sampling the Dark Orange bead image at multiple locations with the Color Picker never resulted in the actual color, FF8C00.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

My TileWorld plugin should be able to create the images you want. You'll need a set of images (tiles). These need to be square.

 

 

There is a link to the plugin in my plugin pack (link to that in my signature ).

 

The whole thread @Eli linked to is a very similar discussion:

 

[Eli]

35 minutes ago, MJW said:

Because of the way it's shaded, sampling the Dark Orange bead image at multiple locations with the Color Picker never resulted in the actual color, FF8C00.

You are right MJW, the shading is just to make it look pretty. 

[LionsDragon]

Here's a pretty standard chart I found online (copyright belongs to an artist named Shona Davidson):

 

 

 

 

 

Each square represents a single bead or stitch in the finished item.

 

 

[MJW]

In that image, each cell, including the grid, is 10 pixels. That would be easy to sample at the approximate center of the cells (the cell size could be settable). I think any numbered version would need to be larger in order for the numbers to fit and be legible. Is the two-pixel grid border, with two-pixel grid lines every 10 cells a standard feature?

[MJW]

If the plugin uses seven-segment numbers, they would fit in a 9-pixel-wide region. In that case, they would almost fit into the 10-pixel cells. They would fit if they're allowed to abut the grid lines for the cells with 2-pixel grid lines. That might be workable, though care would need to be taken so that the color of each number contrasted with both the cell color and the grid-line color.

[Eli]

Just a few ideas for a bead pattern maker :

- Pixelize any image

- An option to control/reduce the number of colors

- An option to change the grid color.

 

[MJW]

 @Eli, the purpose of the plugin would not be to create bead-work patterns from artwork or photos -- though that would be an interesting and useful plugin, I'm sure. The (more mundane) purpose of the proposed plugin would be to take already-existing patterns and add numeric labels to the color cells. As they are, it's often difficult from looking at the pattern to determine which of two similarly colored beads (or whatever) to use.

[LionsDragon]

1 hour ago, MJW said:

In that image, each cell, including the grid, is 10 pixels. That would be easy to sample at the approximate center of the cells (the cell size could be settable). I think any numbered version would need to be larger in order for the numbers to fit and be legible. Is the two-pixel grid border, with two-pixel grid lines every 10 cells a standard feature?

 

I've seen it pretty often; the lines help keep track of where the artist is in the pattern. Larger graphs often have row numbering at the edges, but I can't see that being anything but a headache to code!

[MJW]

@LionsDragon, one of he biggest problems from a coding point of view is knowing what sort of variations there are to the patterns. I don't want to devote the rest of my life to updating the plugin to handle some new format or another.

 

I can see why they use the thick lines to show the the divisions of ten, though I'm not sure why they don't use lighter or darker grid-line colors every 10th line instead. Not that it matters really. I care what they do, not what I think they ought to do.

 

If you or anyone else can describe what you like the plugin to do in more detail, and in more exact terms, it would help in writing the plugin.

[LionsDragon]

Well, the good news is that the format hasn't changed in over 30 years and doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. As for the line thickness, in magazines these are often printed in black ink on white paper; the thicker line shows up better.

 

For myself, I'm flexible; I rarely do graphed work anymore tbh. My eyes can't handle it. I jumped in mostly to help with ideas for formatting.   What I've seen from this and other threads though is a desire to take a picture--say one made in EER's "Tile World"--and assign numbers to the individual colors. The numbers would appear in the squares on the chart that matched the colors in the design--say, a picture of a Yule tree. If dark green is number 7, the green squares on the chart would all receive a number 7 in them. The numbered chart could then be printed/converted to .pdf/whatever in black and white, so the artist could pick beads or fiber that corresponded to the numbers. Hm, a color/number key would probably be a good idea too; they're usually included in patterns, but I honestly can't see how that would be feasible to create in a plugin. Maybe suggest the artist create a key as a separate document when they assign numbers?

[Santiago]

Thanks to everyone who has replied to my question

 

On behalf of what the plugin would need ( and i really aprecciate if it existed) for myself i say, that it let you put either forms or numbers on color so that you can easily see the difference between them, either if you have to put the numbers pixel by pixel or if the plugin let you identify an RGB code and automatically when placed the pixel name it with the number, doesnt matter, both of the opcions would really help.

 

I started thinking of this when i could barely see the difference between a yellow and a pastel yellow tone on paint.net, and that got me thinking that, even if my eyesight is good enough to see the difference, eyesight should not be a issue when trying to identifying the colors, for me, in order to place them on a perler work.

 

Once again, thank you for everyone replies, i would really love is there was a way to make this on Paint.NET and if in the future a plugin is made for it, please, let me know on this post.

 

Edit: i have found a page (https://www.stitchfiddle.com) thats actually super accurate of what would be great on paint.net, in it, if you select "'Cross Stitch'' then "'No preference'' and finally "Create my own design" you will enter a page with a grid that let you put color squares in order to create a pattern, if you go to the color patellete simbol, you will enconter options for colors, such as naming the color, the count that you have putted on the pattern and finally, an option to edit the simbols so that every square with that color can have the same symbol.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Santiago

[MJW]

@Santiago, the first thing I, or anyone else writing such a plugin, needs to know is the format of the input pattern images. Or perhaps I should say, formats. And it's got to be pretty clearly specified: "The cells will be between 10 and 20 pixels square . . ," etc.

 

One thing I should make clear is that for any plugin I would write, the input pattern would have to be a computer image. No photos or scans of patterns from magazines. That would require image-processing well beyond my expertise.

[MadJik]

13 hours ago, MJW said:

One thing I should make clear is that for any plugin I would write, the input pattern would have to be a computer image. No photos or scans of patterns from magazines. That would require image-processing well beyond my expertise.

I would say other plugins could help to prepare this input pattern:

Cutout

Pixelate

etc.

 

and from this kind of model

if you use paint.net (nearest neighbor) resize image to reduce from 320x320 to 32x32 and increase back to 320x320 you will have

 get ride of the grid (except right and bottom)

 

then using the magic wand tool to select a color you could easily obtain the number of beads needed for this color.

(a square is 10x10 for one bead = 100)

if you select the salmon/rose color below the nose paint.net counts 200 pixels selected (so  2 beads).

 

If this could help...

[MJW]

Those are some good suggestions, @MadJik, though I think something like reducing to 32x32 and increasing back to 320x320 works only because the original pattern was a computer image, and therefore completely predictable. If it were a photo, I think some of the cells would disappear and others would be various sizes, depending on how the pixels matched to the cells.

[MJW]

I happened to be at the library today, so I took a look at a couple of craft magazines. I recall the names being "Craft Ideas" and "Cross-stitching and Needlework." Their patterns already had little icons in each cell to identify the colors. The icons were a rather random assortment of numbers, letters, and symbols, such as hearts. I also noticed that sometimes the cell colors didn't exactly match the intended color. For instance, black cells were dark gray so that the icon -- which was always black -- was visible.