I’ve googled this but surprisingly there’re hardly any hits. Maybe I’m not googling the right terms.
I have a few digital pictures of my house, and I want to “virtually paint” it different colors to see how it would look.
I’m a bit of a novice at GIMP though I do understand basic concepts like the various drawing tools, layers, opacity etc.
What is the best way to do this in GIMP? I suspect it has something to do with creating a selection based on only the parts I want to “paint”, cutting|pasting into a new layer, then somehow rotating or mapping the colors in that selection layer, before finally combining it with the “base” layer to see the overall effect.
The problem is that there is a bewildering set of options for combining layers. The one post I did find suggested maybe combining layers by “color”, but I don’t even understand what that means. I do understand a little about combining images, having written my own alpha blending routines, but I’m not getting this. The GIMP manual seems to assume you’re already an expert.
I’m surprised there isn’t a clear, simple tutorial out there for this as it would seem like a very handy use for a graphics program like GIMP.
I’ve used GIMP a fair amount, and I can’t tell you how to do it.
I’d do it using Google SketchUp, but that would entail building a model of your house first, which I can do pretty easily, but I use that program a lot. If you’ve never used it before, it could be very time consuming. You could compromise and just do a 2-D trace of your the front of your house in SketchUP which would be pretty easy, although you could probably do something very similar in GIMP.
Another alternative would be to take a digital photo to a paint store like Benjamin Moore and have them do it for you. You might even be able to do it yourself on the web site. I think this link can help you.
Actually, now that I think about it, there is a nice way to do this on SketchUp, 2-D.
Import the JPEG of your house into SketchUp.
Use the draw tools to create areas you want to paint. It’ll be easier if you eventually make them all part of a “group” so you can paint them all at once. Be sure they are all closed geometries so they can be “filled” later.
Separately, use a part of the siding (or whatever you want to paint) to create a new texture. This is a little tricky, but there a SketchUp for Dummies tutorial on YouTube for this.
Use the paint bucket tool to apply that texture to the areas you created in step 2.
You can edit the color of that texture in the paint bucket side box.
There might be a much easier way to this on GIMP, but I’m not much of a GIMP expert.
Bull. I do it all the time. In fact, all my selections use magic wand, color select and the quick mask for cleanup.
The other selection tools suck. You can’t hand draw a selection with the mouse, and the magic scissors don’t show you what you are going to select. And the foreground select too? Forget it: it’s virtually impossible to hand select only the colors in the foreground. The results are just as good as combining multiple magic selects.
In my experience, when using this on photos, it invariably selects thing that are not desired (like roofing material along with siding) and misses things that are (like siding that is in shadow).
In my experience, when using this on photos, it invariably selects thing that are not desired (like roofing material along with siding) and misses things that are (like siding that is in shadow).
It would work great on a Mondrian abstract painting, but not so good on a picture of a house.
The best I’ve found so far is this:[ol][li]Create a selection for the trim, another for the siding, and another for the windows[]Cut each selection & paste into new layer. I used the free-hand select tool, but went clicking point-to-point since the house is mostly straight lines and geometric shapes[] Select each layer one by one, use the paint bucket and “fill” with desired colors. There are all kinds of merging and fill options that you have to play around with to get it to look right, including various textures, fill patterns and combining options Flatten the image and export[/ol][/li]I’ve never had much luck using the “smart” select tools either. For anything but simple images, there’s endless mucking with the “threshold” to get them to select exactly what you want, and not select what you don’t want. I don’t know if Photoshop does a better job, but the fancy select tools in GIMP don’t seem that great.
I once hired a Russian house painter with a bum leg. I worried about him on the high ladders but I was always there holding the bottom when he climbed up. He didn’t want any extra consideration and considered himself perfectly capable of painting any house. When I saw how much his work meant to him, I stopped calling him that and I suggest you do the same.
It helps to adjust the sensitivity threshold until it picks up most of what you want it to select, and none of what you don’t want it to select. The missing bits you can then finish off by hand with the freeform select tool (holding down the shift key to create a union of selections) or with another round of the magic wand tool, with the threshold turned down and shift-clicking on the areas it missed the first time.