Photo Editing Program??

[Garibaldi]

I am making a dvd cover for a dvd slideshow on classic cars. I wanted to put pictures of the cars on the front in various configurations. I was wondering if there is a good free program (or if it must be trialware so be it) that would easily let me select just around the car and copy that part of the image without getting a bunch of little bits of the background along with it? Here a picture, maybe that will help describe it, the red circled areas are places I would like to try to get rid of:

Thanks for any help you think of.

[racer-x]

Nice GTX. My brother had one of those many moons ago.

You obviously already have an image editor that you used to extract the car with. You just have to go back and clean it up with the eraser tool. It's tedious, but it's the only way to get a clean job of it. You need to learn how to use layers.

I like Photoshop, but that's more than you want to spend. Elements is much cheaper (around $70) and has about 80% of the features. You could also try Paintshop Pro.

[thecoalman]

http://www.gimp.org/

Try the Gimp. I haven't used it but seen it recommended many times here and elsewhere. If you want to spend some cash try Photoimpact from Ulead. They have a free trial, it will do anything you can set your mind too.

[housepig]

second the Gimp. super useful, cross platform & free.

[Garibaldi]

Yea the good old '69 GTX. Thanks for the GIMP idea, I'll check that out. If you come up with any other suggestions, please let me know!

[thecoalman]

BTW selecting by color automatically can sometimes be tedious. The editors will do a good job getting it mostly right. I usually do it manually for the perfect look. I usually zoom in on the image to pixel level and draw the selection from there. Like I said I haven't used the Gimp but photoimapct allows you to select automatically, you can then add or subtract from your selection automatically or manually using different selection tools. The color selected automatically has a setting for similarity, by lowering it it will select less color from the surrounding area preventing unwanted parts of the image. By slowly adding selections you can usually end up with exactly what you want. Problems only arise when you have background that has similar colors. You 'll find most editors have this feature.

[Garibaldi]

You obviously already have an image editor that you used to extract the car with. You just have to go back and clean it up with the eraser tool. It's tedious, but it's the only way to get a clean job of it. You need to learn how to use layers.

I was just using paint in that clip to quickly illustrate my point about the rough edges. The actual program that I use is called Corel Photo House. It lets you use layers and stuff. The problem that I have with erasing the messy parts after cutting it out is that I am overlaying the car over a background. The only way I can erase part of the image is to merge it with the background. If I erase the rough edges then I would be leaving white spaces in the background. So what I need is a program or way to select just the car to import into Corel Photo House. The best way to do this would probably be use a bluescreen or something when taking the pictures but let me know what other ways there are. Thanks

[housepig]

it sounds like Photo House doesn't deal with layers the way Gimp or Photoshop do... in either, I can make a new layer, paste the car on to it, and erase around it, and the erased area will be transparent, allowing the background layer to show through.

you can also turn off viewing the background layers to get a clearer look at what you are deleting, or put a temporary solid-color layer in between the layer you are editing and the actual background you want to use.

[BJ_M]

paint shop pro does that nicely and not expensive

[Garibaldi]

Help! I downloaded gimp 2.4.3 from this site:
http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/stable.html
I ran the setup file. It put all my gimp files in C:\program files\common files\gtk\2.0\. So I ran through the setup and then went to that folder and opened it (2.0). The only thing that I see in the folder is unins000.exe, and the folders bin, ect, lib and share. There is no executable file. How do I use GIMP? I checked the folders and couldn't find any executable files. I know for sure that this is the windows version. What do I have to do to get started with GIMP? Thanks.

[ViRaL1]

That was just the GTK+ 2 Runtime environment. Click the link you posted and also download 'The Gimp for Window$ (version 2.0.4).' That should be what you need.

[BJ_M]

the exe may also be in the BIN folder also

[ViRaL1]

There are a couple .EXEs there, (I installed the same thing just to try), but neither is the GIMP application as it is a separate download.

[BJ_M]

There are a couple .EXEs there, (I installed the same thing just to try), but neither is the GIMP application as it is a separate download.

it was a long shot -

[housepig]

yep, there are two installs - the GTK libraries and the Gimp itself.

slightly confusing, but nothing broken...

[thecoalman]

So what I need is a program or way to select just the car to import into Corel Photo House. The best way to do this would probably be use a bluescreen or something when taking the pictures but let me know what other ways there are. Thanks

Any good editor will do that. The way I do it in Photoimpact is this (the gimp will have similar tool names if not the same), I use the "magic wand" selection tool, make sure that anti-aliasing is selected in the tool options. It works very well for selecting areas that contrast with the areas you don't want, it may have trouble with your example image around the area of the tires since the shadow is very close in color. You can also adjust the similarity to select a wider or lower range of colors. Click on the area you want to select, then change the tool to the add function. Click on other areas to add areas such as the bumper etc. Switch to the lasso tool, you can now add or subtract areas manually by "drawing" them in or out, zoom in if you have too. Once you have what you want selected convert it to an object, cut it from the image and paste it on a white background. Right click on the image and select properties, check soft edge and change the number of pixels to your liking. Usually 2 or 3 for smaller images, if you go too high it becomes noticeable.

As far as importing it into Photo House there's no need, I'm assuming Photo house is a basic editor. Find a good editor and stick with it. If The Gimp doesn't work for you try Photoimpact, Paint Shop or Photoshop Elements. All retail for about $80. Id suggest one of the first two as they are full blown editors and elements is a stripped down version of Photoshop with a lot of key advanced features removed. Here's a comparison http://www.ulead.com/pi/compare.htm, Im sure you can find similar comparisons on the other editors sites as well touting their product I've been using photoimact for ages, actually before it was photoimpact so my opinions may be a little biased.

Here's a image i did using this technique. The entire sky is fake, usually when restoring an image or stitching multiple images together the sky is the hardest.

[Garibaldi]

Thanks for all the advice. I am having trouble making a selection in GIMP. I have opened the picture of the GTX and used the select shapes from image tool: I have all my points around the car and have gotten back to the beginning, how do I close the selection and make the car a new object? I read somewhere in one of the tutorials on GIMP about trying holding down control and click the first point to close it, but that didn't work. I'm sure there is a simple solution to this, thanks for bearing with my inexperience.

[thecoalman]

Double click probably???

Edit: That's wrong, I just downloaded it. To close the selection click on the first point.

2nd Edit: Tried it agaion can't seem to get it to work, I keep getting a cannot find a font error and the app keeps closing on me. Oh well....Good luck. Does look like it has quite a few good features.

[Garibaldi]

I keep getting a cannot find a font error

Yea, I've gotten that font error too, I can still use the app but if I close the prompt window with the font errors the app closes too.

[Garibaldi]

I think I figured it out! What you have to do is click once on the first point, then click inside the selection, like in this selection of the GTX's headlight:

[Garibaldi]

Here's a quick selection that I did that shows the power of the GIMP program, thanks for all the help! Sorry, it has to be pretty low quality to post on here.

[Garibaldi]

Help! I was using the click the first point and in the center to make a selection method and it was working great, but now it won't work at all! What is the right way to make a selection with the sissors tool?

[thecoalman]

Have you tried the help file it's available here, http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/stable.html There's a fix for that font error under the FAQ too.

[Garibaldi]

I downloaded and installed the help file and changed my fonts to Times New Roman. It looks like all the help file is is an offline version of the documentation found at www.gimp.org/docs/.

[DVD_Ripper]

paint shop pro does that nicely and not expensive

My Personal Favorite as well.. been using this since my early DOS days.,

You may be able to find a early win32 version on shareware.com or download.com or tucows.com

[Garibaldi]

I just wanted to thank you guys for your recommendations. I just wanted to post this, a Car Show DVD Cover made with GIMP, for you to enjoy:



Sorry about the quality, but I had to make it less than 50 kb to fit on here.

[ViRaL1]

Looks good. Make sure you include our fee when you bill them. :P