Paint Series Editor

Creating Paint Series Description files with the Paint Series Editor

Components

The Paint Series Editor has a number of components:

• first is the standard menu bar with:

  1. a File menu for loading/saving description files and quitting the program.
  2. a Samples menu which has entries for managing samples including a mechanism for opening an image file view with a facility for copying parts of the image to the clipboard.

• the remainder of the main window is divided into two halves.

  • the left hand side displays information about the paint series as a whole.
    • the name of the manufacturer of the paints
    • a description of the series
    • a notebook with three different views of the series' paints:
      • a Hue/Value wheel which displays the paints as a function of their hue and value.
      • a Hue/Chroma wheel which displays the paints as a function of their hue and chroma, and
      • a list of all the paint colours in the series
  • the right hand side displays information about the paint colour currently being edited:
    • first is a text entry box for entering the name of the paint colour
    • next is a combo box for setting its opacity/transparency
    • next is a combo box for setting its finish
    • next is a set of Hex text entry/spinners for setting the colour's RGB (if known)
    • next is the colour display area (where samples can be pasted for matching) with buttons to adjust the colours hue, tone (lightness) and greyness to match the sample.
    • finally is a button bar:
      • Add: to add the colour to the colour series (if it is a new colour)
      • Accept: to accept changes to the colour being edited if it is already in the series
      • Reset: to clear the right hand side in preparation for creating a new colour
      • Take Sample: use the built in sampler to take an arbitrary sample from the screen for pasting into the colour area (NOT available on Windows where Windows' ScreenClipper should be used instead)
      • Auto Match: which will automatically set the colour value to the average RGB value for all pixels in all pasted samples.

Creating a New Paint Colour

The first thing to do to add the new colour's name in the Colour Name entry field then the paint's transparency and finish. If the new colour's RGB values are known they can be entered directly into the appropriate fields and then add the colour to the series by pressing the Add button.

In the event the colour is to specified using digital samples of the paint, there are number of ways the samples can be taken and pasted into the colour area:

• on Linux systems, the user can use the built in Take Sample mechanism to copy a portion of the image containing the sample to the clipboard and then pasting,
• on Windows, the user can use Windows's ScreenClipper tool to copy and paste, or
• the built in Sample Viewer (available from the Menu Bar using Samples-;gt;Open Sample Viewer) which has a built in select/copy mechanism for the image it holds.

Once samples have been pasted into the colour area, pressing the Auto Match will cause the colour's RGB values to be set to the average for all pasted samples. The user can then use the tweaking buttons to achieve the desired match to the samples.

The sample being used in the above example has been chosen to illustrate the likely problems with using hand painted samples. Hand painting usually results in a less than smooth surface which in turn leads to a "messy" image due to shadow areas and inaccurate highlight colours. This leaves the user with the dilemma of which part of the sample should they match to specify the colour.

Editing an Existing Colour

To edit an existing colour open the Paint Colours page of the Series Display Notebook and select the colour that is to be edited. Then press the right mouse button and choose Edit from the popup menu.