Changing floor colour?

[Jennifer83]

Hi all,

 

I am new to paint.net. I just downloaded the 3.5.11v and I am wondering how I can change the colour of the floor in some photo's. The floor is hardwood, but I want to edit it to completely white. I am new to photo editing and a tad computer illiterate so hopefully it isn't too complicated! I normally use Picasa for storing/editing photos, but I don't believe there is an option for changing background colours there.

 

Thanks very much!

[BODA]

Hi Jennifer,

 

I am not an extensive user like some here, however, it is possible several ways.

The easiest way would be to use your paint bucket tool.
Click on the "paint bucket" icon in "tools."

You might want to copy and paste this into "notepad" for offline reference.

when opening paint.net if "tools" is not open and waiting for you on the screen after the picture loads go to "Windows" at the top.
Click "Tools" and "Colors" so both windows open and are ready to use.

When paint.net opens each time the default color is set to black no matter what tool you use, so you'll need to change that to white as specified.
Look below the multi colored wheel for tiny little boxes of different colors, click the white on the far left.

Now that your paint bucket is loaded and ready to use there are several tools you may need to experiment with to achieve your goal.
At the top of the program look for "Tolerance" it defaults at 50% - if you click in the blue area of the tolerance and the number drops

in percentage this will tell the paint bucket tool how much area to cover in white based on colors in the area you are working.
Experiment with this as much as you like remembering there is an "undo" arrow up top that will revert your last action. 

Click the floor twice and don't like it? well you have to click the "undo" arrow twice as well.

Also in the color window there is a button that says "more" click it, as it will expand the tools to use in the color window.
If you go down to "transparency" you can set the level of white that will be added to your image as well, again, if you don't
like your results remember the "undo" arrow.

There is a tricky part of using the paint bucket tool if color happens to spread or travel in a direction you didn't want it to travel out of.

This means one thing, there is no opposing color in the image you are trying to change, that can "stop" or "prohibit" the color from
spreading or traveling into that region of the photo.
In this case you will need to zoom in on the photo in and find where the color breaks through - Example: we'll say where the floor meets the wall,
if white travels up the wall you will need to use a "line" tool or a freehand tool like the "pen" tool - to create a border and stop it from spreading up
the wall. By simply adding a line will tell paint bucket where it has to stop the color.

Like I said, zoom into the photo at least 500 or 600%, maybe more, draw a tiny dark line in that area to stop the color white from spreading at that line.
When you zoom out and back to the default 100% of the photo you should not be able to see the line you made, if so fix it so its not apparent.
From here on it's all about trial and error and will only make you a better user of paint.net

Hope this helps,

Boda












 

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

Hello!
 
You can change the color of an image from the adjustments tab, which can be found up in the menu bar. The most popular color changing adjustments are Hue/Saturation, Curves, or Levels. Since white is your interest though, I would also suggest Black and White, as well as Brightness/Contrast.
 
However, if you want to change the color of only your floor and nothing else, you're going to want to have your floor be on it's own layer, separated from the rest of the image.
 
There are multiple ways to do this.
Before you do either of them though, first duplicate your image, temporarily make the original image invisible (you're going to pretend it's not there for now), then make sure the duplicated layer is blue, which means it's the layer your on. (don't know how to use layers? see here : http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/LayersWindow.html)
 

Now you can use one of the below methods to separate your floor from everything else.

 

* You can either follow this tutorial that's about deleting an image's background : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/13796-cutting-out-images/
 
* Or you can use TR's Alpha Cutter plugin to cut-out your floor :
How to install plugins -- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/1708-how-to-install-pluginsgeneral-plugin-troubleshooting-thread/
Download TR's Alpha Cutte plugin -- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/26966-trs-alpha-cutter-v303-mar-232014/
 
* You can also just use the eraser tool and erase everything you don't want.
 
Once your background is deleted/the floor is cut-out, you can make your original image visible again.
Then making sure you're on your floor layer, you can go up to the menu bar, click the adjustments tab, and use any of the following to change your floor's color, as already mentioned.
Hue/Saturation, Curves, Levels, Black and White, and Brightness/Contrast.
 
If your cut-out floor has ugly/rough edges, try these plugins :
Basic Antialias -- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?showtopic=7644

Both Feather plugins -- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?showtopic=2140

AA's Assistant which is part of this pack -- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?showtopic=16643

And Anti-alias -- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?showtopic=5610

 

 

Hope this helps, good luck!

[david.atwell]

@BODA - your answer is not the best way of doing this.  It just isn't accurate enough.  cc4fh is much better.

[Jennifer83]

Thank you so much for the detailed instructions! I attempted to follow instructions from both posts, but they eneded up looking horrid. I am not very good at editing! If I manage to get this done so that it looks halfway decent, do the results print well? I hoping to edit these pictures of my kids to hang on the wall, but if it looks "edited" and not natural once printed, I am not going to bother.

 

ETA: I guess what I am trying to say is that I would like the photos of them to appear that they were actually standing on a white floor, not our hardwood.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Jennifer83

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Consider the lighting source Use this direction to drag out a white-to-light grey radial gradient on the white floor. It should darken the corners a little - giving a flat block of white a bit of realism.

Feel free to upload the photo so we can see what you're trying to achieve.

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

Do you have a picture you can share? Maybe we could give you more ideas.

Here is a tutorial for uploading pictures. But remember to keep the image sizes to forum rules or use thumbnails.

http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/12193-how-to-use-images-in-your-posts-signatures-and-avatars/

 

 

For printing pictures, I suggest you check out this explanation on pixels and DPI. :http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/17049-dpi-and-you-understanding-resolution-for-print-and-web/

Edited March 31, 2014 by Cc4FuzzyHuggles