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Thread: A Question for the Non-Graphically Incompetent

  1. #1
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    A Question for the Non-Graphically Incompetent

    I've been trying to modify some of the buttons and icons here to blend better with our color scheme but between my own native lack of ability and ten year old copy of paint shop pro, I'm coming up with less than salutary results.

    It would seem that the relationship between one color and another could be defined mathematically. Color A is X distance (in either RGB, or what ever other metric) from color B, shouldn't someones software allow you to replace color A and have it redefine color B in the same ratio?

    My problem is I can replace one color at a time with my current understanding of my ancient software. But with shadows and highlights, even on small forum graphics, there may be a dozen or more separate colors. Now each of those colors are X steps removed from each other and I'd love to think someone's software would let me pick one color out of that group, change it to another color of my choosing and have it adjust each of the other colors in their original relationships to each other.

    Either my understanding of color and computer theory is seriously flawed, in which case they'd be added to a rather large and growing list, or some PSP plugin does this.

    Any suggestions?

  2. #2
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    Re: A Question for the Non-Graphically Incompetent

    I don't even understand your question :o , but have you looked here?

    vBulletin Community Forum

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    Re: A Question for the Non-Graphically Incompetent

    Thanks for the bump Emet, and I've been over and through vBulletin.com and .org, that's where I learned most of what I needed to know about setting this place up. But my question isn't really a vB question, it's more like a photoshop question.

    Look at one of the smaller forum graphics, let's use the "subscribe to forum" button for example:

    Subcribe Green.png

    Well that's a green button with a white check mark, should be easy to make it blue, right? But if you magnify it there are no fewer than seven shades of green in there:

    Subcribe Green Big.png

    If you replace every shade of green with one shade of blue then it loses it's shadow and highlights and basically looks like crap. I can replace one shade at a time, that's not difficult even if it's a bit time consuming. Say I replaced the Green1.png color with this blue Blue1.png, if I wanted to maintain the same shadows and highlights I'd need to replace all the different shades of green with shades of blue that varied from that blue in the same relation that the greens vary. The problem is my old copy of Paint Shop Pro can't seem to tell me "this green is to that green as this blue is to that blue" so I'm left more or less eyeballing the shades and it seems I really suck at that.

    It seems to me that someone makes software that would let me take the above image, tell it to replace that one green color with that one blue color and it would more or less automatically fill in the gradations of blue in the same relation than the current greens are. But I could be wrong, I have established precedent for being so.

  4. #4
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    Re: A Question for the Non-Graphically Incompetent

    When you change it to the blue color do you not have the option to select a shadowing effect? I've never used PSP (though I do want to purchase a copy... I'm thinking of either Christmas or my birthday), but I do use GIMP which is free. It's not nearly as good as PSP but it works.

    Anyway, are you able to look at each layer that they have for the graphic you're trying to change? I'd start there if you could and just see what is done to make the effect on the check mark (or whatever graphic you're trying to work with) and replicate it with the blue color. I'd also check your settings and options and see if there's something you need to check mark or something you can click in order to make the effect replicate on the new color. If you can't find anything, also try checking youtube for an instructional video. They have tons on there and when I get stuck on GIMP I check there first an almost always find an answer. Good luck!

  5. #5
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    Re: A Question for the Non-Graphically Incompetent

    Well, again, I'm lost. But I googled "paint shop pro alternatives" and there are some open source ones that I presume are free. I didn't read anything about them, because I know nothing about PSP.

    Heck, I can't even photoshop...

    Wonder if there are any PSP type forums around?

    Software & Hardware - Tech Support Guy Forums

    I don't know if the above forum has anything useful, but years ago I posted some really dumb questions about WinXP and PC's, and they were really nice and helpful...

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    Re: A Question for the Non-Graphically Incompetent

    I haven't used paint shop pro and haven't had photoshop for a while, but you can do this in gimp via the color balance tool. GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program (free).

    also on a side note suggestion, when logged out the menu in the upper right has a red background and blue text. Makes it hard to read. It's usually a good idea to try to keep from using dark colored text on a dark background. Best to go with light on dark or dark on light.
    Last edited by Ballinamuck; 06-26-2010 at 11:41 AM.

  7. #7
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    Re: A Question for the Non-Graphically Incompetent

    Thank you all. I'll grab a copy of gimp and start plating with it, just as soon as i move a few of our more pressing issues off the "to do" list.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ballinamuck View Post
    also on a side note suggestion, when logged out the menu in the upper right has a red background and blue text. Makes it hard to read. It's usually a good idea to try to keep from using dark colored text on a dark background. Best to go with light on dark or dark on light.
    Thanks for the suggestion, I think a simple "StyleVar" alteration will fix that but even if changing that stylevar also changes things I don't want it to, I'm getting a bit more comfortable with (very) basic CSS edits. This is on the list. Thanks again.

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