Photography help?

[Dizzyfugu]

You can find Gimp via web search, make sure that it comes from a safe platform. Installation is easy - the user surface is a bit confusing, as you get a window with the picture and another one with tools, that change according to the tools you currently use. I never did a tutorial, but I have maybe 10 years of "learning by doing" photo editing experience, so that I find Gimp pretty intuitive. Not certain how it works out for a newbie in such things - I'd consider myself an amateur, and the results are convincing. 

[Weaver]

You can do simple photo-edit stuff with the "Paint" programme that comes free with most PCs. It's not at all fancy but you can get reasonable results as long as you limit your ambitions and choose/create material accordingly.

This pic from my FAA Panther build was done by putting the front wheel up on a "clip" of half-a-dozen staples (chosen for their thin edge facing the camera) and then cutting and pasting irregular bits of nearby background over the staples to make them disappear. This only works on a simple background, so take your photos accordingly.



It's anything but perfect (particularly if you blow it up bigger) but for a .JPEG posted on a website it'll do nicely.

[Dizzyfugu]

You can do simple photo-edit stuff with the "Paint" programme that comes free with most PCs. It's not at all fancy but you can get reasonable results as long as you limit your ambitions and choose/create material accordingly.

Sorry, but MS Paint is rubbish.    It's only good for single pixels - NO! NOT for any decent picture manipulation. But there's the MS Picture Manager in the Office package. While it is not intended for retouches you can actually crop pictures with it very effectively, resize things and manipulate brightness and contrast - there's even a sound "auto" function, very handy for dummies!

But if you want to hide a display or such, go for a decent program that is actually designed for picture editing.

[Weaver]

You can do simple photo-edit stuff with the "Paint" programme that comes free with most PCs. It's not at all fancy but you can get reasonable results as long as you limit your ambitions and choose/create material accordingly.

Sorry, but MS Paint is rubbish.    It's only good for single pixels - NO! NOT for any decent picture manipulation. But there's the MS Picture Manager in the Office package. While it is not intended for retouches you can actually crop pictures with it very effectively, resize things and manipulate brightness and contrast - there's even a sound "auto" function, very handy for dummies!

But if you want to hide a display or such, go for a decent program that is actually designed for picture editing.

Paint is very basic with serious limitations and it certainly isn't "better" than anything: my point is that it's free and most people have already got it, so if they want to do minor stuff, it's an easy starting option. I hid the stand in the pic I posted in about 20mins using Paint. It would have taken a HELL of a lot longer if the background had been complicated or patterned, but it wasn't. If you want to do anything more fancy, then yes, you absolutely WILL need a better program.

[sandiego89]

Panther build was done by putting the front wheel up on a "clip"

Gee many of my models are tail sitters all by themselves  

Good tips guys.  

[Dizzyfugu]

As an addendum for Army of One: two examples of mine before I went for photo editing software. Somewhere you have to leave the display/holder of a flying model, and in the early days of my photography career I tried polishing cotton as fake clouds:


1:72 Horten Ho IX/Gotha Go 229 A-2 Night Fighter; "3 Red" of V./NJG 1; Venlo, Netherlands; May 1946 (Whif/Dragon kit conversion) by dizzyfugu, on Flickr

This is the same kit as in the Finished Aircraft post, but the pic was taken maybe 10 years ago. The holder is an iron wire, but the model's angle to the camera hides much of it (and on the black BG it is hard to see at all). The white "cloud" at the botton hides anything visible, and with the focus on the model the cloud become even more "blurry".

More cammo-clouds (some are very old, even scanned paper pics from the pre-digital era!):


1:100 Macross VF-1J "Valkyrie" - US Navy/VF-142 "Ghostriders" design by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:100 Macross VF-1J Valkyrie "166" - US Navy/VF-142 "Ghostriders" design by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:100 Macross VF-1A Valkyrie "151" by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:100 Macross VF-1A Valkyrie "151" by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:100 Macross VF-1J "Valkyrie" - "Blue 27"/Su-27 livery by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:100 Macross VF-1J "Valkyrie" - "Blue 27"/Su-27 livery by dizzyfugu, on Flickr


1:100 Macross VF-1J "Valkyrie" - "Blue 27"/Su-27 livery by dizzyfugu, on Flickr

Hitting such a cotton cloud with a spotlight lets it shine from within, and it loses its fibre structure. Finding a good overall light level is tricky, though - and editing yields nicer results... 

[Army of One]

That's a great help.....many thanks.....

[Go4fun]

Always, always ALWAYS make sure to remove the lencap on older cmaeras!

It prevents cursing, screaming and hair loss by the handful when the prints come out.

But seroiusly having a second light source to one side or the other can fill in details when your trying to show them off.

[PR19_Kit]

Is that Night, or Night Type S finish? 

[rickshaw]

I thought it was a picture of P'yong'yang by night.