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Advice on recoloring small anti-alaised .gif files


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Hello Guys 'n Girls!

Firstly I should add that I am a very new user to this software (a.k.a I downloaded it and started learning it yesterday - nor have I used other graphic software :lol: ).

I am attempting to recolour all of the images found on the phpBB3 forum style ProSilver, to work on a dark background. The images started off like this:

http://demo.phpbb3styles.eu/?style_id=84 - see the white disc icons that were designed for a white background that clash ?

So far I now have them looking like this:

newicons.jpg

So I have made some progress - but I am not really truly happy with results yet.

The 'technique' I am using is as follows: (please feel free to suggest a better method!)

open a graphic.

Select 'Invert' to give it a black background.

Zoom in like crazy

Use the recolour tool, select an area of the graphic to recolour.

Tweak the 'tolerence' to try to only get the colours I want changed (This seems to vary case by case).

On the next image, select the recolour to use from the previous graphic etc.

The 'issues' I am getting are as follows:

1) I am struggling to get the recoloured area of the image to reflect the colour I have in mind when I zoom out again - for example, I had saved an image of the forums to pick up the orange\yellow text colour - however when I recoloured the text on the new post button, and on the borders of the orange discs, they dont really reflect the exact text colour (despite using the dropper tool to pick them up).

2) The 'stars' on the right of some buttons (such as the new post button) lose a lot of thier definition when recolouring them. I have tried to tidy these up pixel by pixel, but am having great difficulty identifying which pixels are correct and which are not

3) The red borders on the 'red' discs have have become quite jagged upon a recolour - how can I get the outlines on all my disc icons sharp and defined ?

4) 'complex' images - some of the graphics I need to rework include gradiants and small fiddely images (such as the new PM button) - I am struggling to use the above method for these!

5) Consistant colours - the colours are not quite consistant between images, how can I improve that ? I have tried typing in colour values, but becuase of the the anitalaising it never quite seems to reflect the intended colour!

Many thanks to anyone who spares the time to point me in the right direction! I still have about another 60 of these to do, and they all seem to be getting smaller and more fiddley!

Thanks,

Miz

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update:

I have discovered the tutorials section - this did not help any further, and I have also played with turning anit-alaising off. Although this gave me a better colour match, it led to even more blocky images.

Are there any other paint.net resources I should be searching on before posting in here ? Am really hoping to finalise these so I can go live this week with the updated forums!

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Well I guess this is a bump! (apologies if this is ont allowed - I did not see mention of it in the rules FAQ).

I would normally wait a little longer but am under a bit of time pressure here! It *might* be that I have gone about things the best way possible, but then again pigs may fly!

Would appreciate any help or advice given :twisted:

I *DO* have to say that this is a great piece of software, expect a contribution at month end! Many thanks to the people involved - its usually a thankless task!

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Thanks Spike\Deborah for the replies,

Spike, I ahve not really got to grips with layers yet - are you siggesting that I create an entire new image in an layer, almost as 'tracing paper' ?

Deborah, thanks for that idea, this would involve recolouring without antialasing, and then using this plugin afterwards ? (I am guessing that this is what you mean by deleting the AA ?)

Thanks for the prod, am off to experiment!

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