Color selection software idea

[Temperance]

I\'ve had a thought in my head for a few days, and I wanted to see what others thought of it.

In photoshop and other programs, there\'s a tool called the eyedropper tool. When selecting a part of the image, it gives the value of the color. There are several methods for defining a color. One way is the RGB method, which gives three numbers between 0 and 255 for red, green and blue.

Now let\'s say we take a couple of our paints and determine what their RGB colors would be. If I took a piece of paper and painted a small splotch of an assortment of colors, it I could scan in this sheet and determine various RGB colors for a line of paint, like Vallejo\'s Game Colors or GW\'s line.

Let\'s say a particular Red paint came out to \"255-0-0\" and a particular Blue paint came out to \"0-0-255\". A mixture could come out to \"255-0-255\" (and this is the part that would need to be tested)

Now let\'s say that you have a real life picture of something that you want to paint with these colors. If we write a program similar to this eyedropper tool, we could select a portion of the photograph, it would determine the estimate for the RGB color of that part, and it would try to estimate what paint colors to use, like \"50% Scab Red + 50% Chaos Black\".

As painters, would this be a useful tool? Also, do you think it\'s possible to interpolate the colors in that way?

 

[Errex]

Right...

... and then we can just assign a number to say, the left arm of the jacket of Frodo and such, so everybody can paint the same.

As an interesting premise, I concede that it might warrant some investigating, but I doubt it would be such an useful tool from the hobbyist point of view. I, for one, wouldn\'t care less to know that a certain hue can be achived mixing paint A with brand B paint.

And, What about the mixing ratio?. Somehow I doubt an analisis of the RGB values can give you that sort of info.

 

[Temperance]

Actually, the idea I had was not to click on a picture of a miniature and repaint that, but instead imagine that you have a picture of a real metal object with a good sky/earth reflection. Analyze the colors of that to get a good starting point on what colors to use for chrome NMM, or brass NMM, etc.

Perhaps instead of RGB, CMYK would be better.

 

[Errex]

Dunno...

Most of the time, chrome or gold or whatever, don\'t look so striking in real life.

Doing that sort of analisys, just to get a paint recipe, doesn\'t sound that feasible to me. The main problem when doing NMM is not the colors you use, but trying to fool the eye (with acryllics, no less!!) to interpret a series of lines and gradients as light reflecting from a shiny surface.

It\'d be interesting to hear from someone that has some background in Physics, specifically Optics.

 

[AAvH-Darkblade]

Originally posted by Temperance
Now let\'s say we take a couple of our paints and determine what their RGB colors would be. If I took a piece of paper and painted a small splotch of an assortment of colors, it I could scan in this sheet and determine various RGB colors for a line of paint, like Vallejo\'s Game Colors or GW\'s line.

Let\'s say a particular Red paint came out to \"255-0-0\" and a particular Blue paint came out to \"0-0-255\". A mixture could come out to \"255-0-255\" (and this is the part that would need to be tested)

Now let\'s say that you have a real life picture of something that you want to paint with these colors. If we write a program similar to this eyedropper tool, we could select a portion of the photograph, it would determine the estimate for the RGB color of that part, and it would try to estimate what paint colors to use, like \"50% Scab Red + 50% Chaos Black\".

As painters, would this be a useful tool? Also, do you think it\'s possible to interpolate the colors in that way?

For this to work your Scanner, monitor and Photoshop (paint program) would need to be properly synchronized. Then you would be able to get proper colour inputs and outputs.

Writing the software (algorithm) to interpolate the colour mixes would be quite complex and require a substantially high level of programming knowledge and a very good understanding of colour and light. Home Paint stores and Auto body Shop have this type of software already, with a scanners, mix interpolation software, etc, etc. to paint match your car or home.

That being said this can all be done in Photoshop with a little effort. Properly using the tools, masks and filters in Photoshop makes any of this quite possible without needed to build it ones self. I would recommend picking up a good “How-to” guide on using Photoshop to colour comic books, I’ve seen a few and they really give you all the basics on coloring any type of image.

I’d rather just paint and let my creativity flow. I run a software company and design software as a profession and like the tactile, hands-on of painting. Why put a computer between you and the miniature, it’s just another tool you don’t really need, beside you might splash paint on your keyboard. lol

Darkblade