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Old 04-05-08, 19:31   #11
tomblover
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Keep checkin' here for Paint.NET tips and tricks!

Recoloring something in a simple way

1. Open up your texture.

2. Select the area you want to recolor with any of the select tools. You can also not select anything to recolor the whole image. You have three choices:

The rectangle select is the most easy to use. Selects square areas. However it's mostly only useful for small areas. (If you want to recolor a finger or something.)

The ellipse select makes a round select. Useful for eyes. Also, this select depends very much on where you click. You have to be pretty precise to get a perfect circle around an eye.

The lasso select is very advanced. You must be careful. I suggest not trying this until you get more precise with your mouse. Feel free to experiment with it if you like but I suggest backing up your texture before you try it. In case you mess up.

3. When you've selected your area, click on the "Adjustments" dropdown menu. "Select Hue / Saturation..."

4. Here's a simple guide to the sliders:

Hue: Changes the color of the picture. You may get weird results if you're trying to recolor two textures together. (For example hair + skin selected in the same area. The skin may turn yellow and the hair may turn another weird color.)

Saturation: The colorfulness. Slide it all the way to the left for a black & white image. Slide it all the way to the right for a really strong color.

Lightness: Light or darkness. All the way to the left for a black image or all the way to the right for a white image. (Note: If you choose "Brightness / Contrast" from the "Adjustments" dropdown menu you may get better results if you're trying to get a brighter/darker image. Lightness is more "extreme.")

5. Make your choices, and then click OK!

Now you know how to recolor stuff in a simple way!

Making things invisible

1. Open up your texture.

2. Select the area you wanna make invisible using any of the tools explained in the previous tutorial.

3. Now choose the "Gradient Fill" tool.

4. In the tool menu. Click the red, green, blue and black square and select transparency mode. Note that you cannot make anything transparent in game with this. If you try, it's either totally invisible or totally visible.


5. Now, click WAY outside of the selected area. It should turn into a white/grey-checkered space.

Great! That means it's invisible! You're done!

Pasting images into your texture image

1. Open up your texture.

2. There's no need to select anything as the image you paste won't be confined to that particular space.

3. Go on and find your image you wanna paste. Save it if you haven't already.

4. Open your other image. Now select the whole image (Or a part of it.) and choose "Copy" from the "Edit" dropdown menu.

5. Now open up your texture again. Select the "Edit" dropdown menu and choose "Paste". It should appear somewhere on the texture image. You'll notice that it has a "box" around it and you can extend or minimize the texture by clicking and holding onto the small squares or circles on the "box" and dragging them. Keep in mind that it may look seriously ugly if you stretch it too much. You can also move the pasted image by simply placing your mouse right on top of it, click on it (And hold the mouse button.) and you can place it anywhere you like. Keep in mind that you can only manipulate the image this way as long as that "box" is there. If you accidentally remove it you can always "Undo" until the box pops up again.

Note that if you use an image that is transparent in some way you need to click "Paste in to New Layer" instead of "Paste" for the transparency to take effect. The "box" around the image still acts as a square though. When it saves it'll ask you if you want to "flatten" the image because you're using an image format that doesn't support "saving" layers. That means that next time you open the image the separate layer won't be there. It's for the best if you keep a backup in a format that has support for layers if you're unsure if you're done or not.

Last edited by tomblover; 07-05-08 at 18:56.
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