Neil
Western Thunderer
Here's something that might be of interest. It's an application for one of those gimmicks that come with image manipulation programs that I stumbled upon some time ago. Here's the cod science bit.
There's much written about building models under the light they are to be displayed under in the hope of keeping the colours true to intended. Many will also use colour images to try and refine the shades they use. In the past I've become very interested in employing a master shot for assisting with getting true colours consistent across all scenic aspects of the layout. My minimum requirement is a shot that covers the major elements, sky, distant hills or landmass, trees, undergrowth, grass, and road surface. Other bonuses would be the vernacular building materials, track, ballast, ironwork that sort of thing. I've never been that bothered about pin sharp focus or artistic compostion as the photo is purely to get the colour relationships correct.
Now photos are capable of rendering far greater detail than we can hope to model, leaves on trees, the intricacies of rock faces, and it can be quite hard to pick out the dominant colours as our eyes can latch onto interesting details, which assume greater significance in our perception of the colour.
Now the sales pitch.
I've been using Irfanview to faff around with my photos since I swapped from film to pixels. Once i could master (ha !) the basics I started to play around with the other features. The one we're interested in here is the 'oil paint' function in the 'effects browser'. Take a standard pic, or scan ....
.... and whip it through the oil paint function dialed at or close to max .....
Notice how it's now easier to pick out the dominant colors and assess their proportions to the minor shades.
There's much written about building models under the light they are to be displayed under in the hope of keeping the colours true to intended. Many will also use colour images to try and refine the shades they use. In the past I've become very interested in employing a master shot for assisting with getting true colours consistent across all scenic aspects of the layout. My minimum requirement is a shot that covers the major elements, sky, distant hills or landmass, trees, undergrowth, grass, and road surface. Other bonuses would be the vernacular building materials, track, ballast, ironwork that sort of thing. I've never been that bothered about pin sharp focus or artistic compostion as the photo is purely to get the colour relationships correct.
Now photos are capable of rendering far greater detail than we can hope to model, leaves on trees, the intricacies of rock faces, and it can be quite hard to pick out the dominant colours as our eyes can latch onto interesting details, which assume greater significance in our perception of the colour.
Now the sales pitch.
I've been using Irfanview to faff around with my photos since I swapped from film to pixels. Once i could master (ha !) the basics I started to play around with the other features. The one we're interested in here is the 'oil paint' function in the 'effects browser'. Take a standard pic, or scan ....
.... and whip it through the oil paint function dialed at or close to max .....
Notice how it's now easier to pick out the dominant colors and assess their proportions to the minor shades.
