Design Post Update

Rating 

According to Microsoft "Paint is absolutely the best image editor on the market. Paint allows you to edit existing images and draw your own. Forget about complicated layers and tons of useless effects. 'Paint' contains only tools you really need!". The reality is that unless you're a 9 year old child, that statement is simply not true. As nostalgic as I am about paint, having grown up without the internet, I just can't give it a better rating. In fact 'Paint' is probably what gives free image editors a bad name.
In better news for paint lovers, Microsoft Paint 3D is no available on windows 10 as a free app download. It is the classic Paint reimagined, with an updated look and feel and a ton of new brushes and tools. You can make 2D masterpieces or 3D models that you can play with from all angles.

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Rating 

Easl.ly is a free info-graphic oriented web app with a plethora of templates to choose from. If you want to turn your photo into a chart or include it in a report, this is the best free option you’ll find. The blank template allows you to add a number of objects and effects if you aren’t interested in an infographic but still want to spruce up your photo and have a little fun with it before posting online.

It is free to register but some options and functions are reserved for premium users only. However at $3 per month it is a much cheaper option than it's main rival Canva ($12.95 monthly)

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Rating 

PicMonkey is a free editing tool for amateur photographers who want to quickly edit their images and turn them into mini-masterpieces. There are four primary tools in the PicMonkey holster: Editing, Touch Up, Design, and Collage. Editing probably provides the most functionality, allowing you to apply effects, advanced filters, spot correction, and so on. However, Touch Up is also a popular choice for selfies, profile pics, event photos, and so on.

This suite is designed more for the average person, or those who want the best picture possible for social media or sharing, and aren’t afraid to work on it with more advanced tools. PicMonkey also offers a premium version app which offers added functionality, templates etc. Premium option starts from €7.49 a month with the option to trial for free for a seven-day period.

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BeFunky

BeFunky is another online photo editor that's really easy to work with. Similar to PicMOnkey it offers multiple tools including Photo Editor, Designer and Collage. There are labels, emoticons, tons of textures and frames, a text tool, several effects like oil painting and cartoonizer, as well as all the basic editing and touch up tools. There's also a Facebook Cover crop tool that crops the image to the exact size required to use as a cover image on Facebook.

Many of the effects, borders, etc. unfortunately require you to upgrade to a paid version of BeFunky to use them. This is a real downside but with premium prices starting at just $2.91 per month it is a very affordable premium option.

iPiccy

Rating 

This is an online editor with multiple tools just like PicMonkey and BeFunky but without the restrictions of premium membership for some features. So it's totally free and although some features require you sign up, there is no charge and no hidden strings attached.There are tons of useful tools and the interface couldn't be easier to work with.

The built-in designer editor is a very capable vector editing system with all the main tools you can think of and the collage maker has lots of interesting and useful layouts and templates for you to use when making a collage.

On the downside there are only two file format options when saving and only one sharing option available. Also, the images can't be resized within the collage editor and you are unable to create your own custom collage layout only being able to choose from the set options.

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Rating 

SumoPaint is one of those “Photoshop lite” image editors that have sprung up in recent years, but it stands out from the rest. There is a web-based editor and a downloadable option as well which is great for those with limited or no internet access. You get 30 days free for the downloadable editor before you need to upgrade to pro but it is so cheap and gives you a load of added features so you'll hardly mind.

You will find plenty of the standard, basic image editing tools in the free version of Sumo Paint plus many fun and whacky paint tool features. Using a menu bar that is similar to Photoshop's, you will find the familiar blur, smudge, gradient fill, line tools, clone, and more. But you will also get other cool features, including a bulky star tool, and symmetry and custom shape tools. Sumo's text tool (for adding text to images) is so simple to use it makes you wonder why other programs often lack in this area of software development.

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Pixlr

Rating 

Pixlr is an online photo editing tool. Fast, simple and enough features to make this a great find for moderate-level photo editing. You can create a new image, upload an image, or grab one directly from a URL location. With Pixlr Editor you have full control over your images including layers and effects. I would class it as the best of the in browser image editors.

If you are already familiar with Photoshop, you will find the Pixlr Editor menu options familiar both in layout and in how they work. The website is short on tutorials, however, but if you read Pixlr's blog you will find more information about how to get the most out of Pixlr. If you are new to image editing and do not like to play around in software, KT Forlaget has produced 30 video tutorials in English to help you quickly master all the important basic features and tools Pixlr offers.

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Inkscape

Krita

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Duplicating the layer

This is just a precautionary step in case you accidentally make a mess of your image! This way we will be editing the duplicate layer and your original black and white image is safe and sound. There are numerous ways to duplicate a layer in Photoshop, the most obvious being the one shown above - click on Layer > Duplicate Layer, then name the layer in the pop up window. Crtl + J is the keyboard shortcut for duplicating a layer in Photoshop.

The process of taking snapshots will be key to this process. If you are not familiar with this process, it simply involves clicking the little camera icon on the history window in Photoshop. What this does is take a digital "snapshot" of the current history state of the layer, we will use this to store different colours which we will then use to "paint in " the original black and white image using the history brush.

This first snapshot,shown above, is another precautionary step here, really a bit of practice as we won't actually use this particular snapshot later on. However you may use it for your own image, especially if you want to retain some areas of black and white.

Step 5: Creating the skin colour snapshot...

So we'll start with creating the colour for the skin. As explained already, we will be creating a colour, storing it in a snapshot then using the history brush to paint it on the relevant areas later on.

Select the Cyan layer in the channels window then edit the brightness and contrast as shown

First of go to Channels and select just the cyan layer as shown above.

Then in the top menu bar click Image > Image adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and input a value of  85 Brightness and 25 Contrast. Obviously you can use different values to achieve different skin tones.

Then, back in the channels window select the CMYK layer to see the skin colour, as shown below. If you are not happy just select the Cyan layer again and edit the values until you are happy.

Now, most importantly, we store this colour for later use by taking a new shapshot from the history window, rename the snapshot "Skin" so we know what we want it for later on.

The process for creating the colours for the other areas we want to colour is slightly different but even easier. The areas we need different colours for are Hair, Background, Lips (nail polish too), Eyes, Jumper and Skirt.

For each area we want to colour in we will go to Image > Image Adjustments > Hue & Saturation and edit the values to achieve the colour we want. Then save that colour in a snapshot.

Feel free to use different values to the ones I outline below but be aware that each colour change is an edit of the one before so if you change one then all will require different values.

For the hair go to Image > Image Adjustments > Hue & Saturation and choose the following values hue of -43, saturation of 61 and lightness -5.

Then take a new snapshot in the history window and rename it hair.

For the background go to Image > Image Adjustments > Hue & Saturation and choose the following values  hue of -20, saturation of 15 and lightness of  -15

Then take a new snapshot and call it background

Keep building up the snapshots of the different colours making sure to name each snapshot as you go along

For her lips values of hue -15, saturation 72 and lightness 10. Which should create a rosy red/pink.

Take a new snapshot, call it lips. We will use the same colour for her nail polish.

For her eyes values of  hue -155, saturation 70 and lightness 5. Which should create a nice sea blue.

Take a new snapshot, call it eyes.

For her jumper values of hue -20, saturation 100 and lightness 20. Which should create a navy blue.

Take a new snapshot, call it jumper

And finally for the skirt values of hue 0 saturation -50 and lightness 0. Which is just a plain white.

Take a new snapshot, call it skirt

All the snapshots have now been taken

Step 7: Colourising...

OK, so that's all the preparation done, now for the fun part, coloring in! You can do this in any order really but I prefer to start from the bottom and work up.

Select the last screenshot layer (skirt) then click the checkbox in front of the layer above (jumper), which will show the history brush icon, as shown in the image below. This will allow us to paint the colours saved from the jumper snapshot layer onto the skirt layer (which we'll use as our base).

It helps to select the area you want to colour in first, in this case the jumper.

For accuracy you can use the magic wand selection tool to select the jumper area and use then use the history brush tool to colour it in as shown above. Cool, right!

We will repeat this process now for the other areas of the image.

Now click in the box in front of the eyes layer, again select the area you want to colour using an appropriate selection tool and then use the history brush to colour it in.

Colourising the eyes in the black and white photo

Next the lips, once again select the box on the relevant snapshot, select the area to be coloured in then use the history brush to colour it in.

Adding colour to the lips in the black and white photo

Now the background...

Our black and white photo is no mainly colour

Finally the hair and the skin...

The black and white image is now full colour

You can go back through the snapshot layers again in any order to tidy up or re-colourise any areas which require it.  You can also edit the image overall using any image adjustment technique you want, or use an adjustment layer to test out a variety of edits. In the final image below I used brightness and contrast to lighten the image overall. That's it, all done. You are now ready to start colourising your own black and white photos.

The completed colourised image

Steps To Create The "Diffuse" Texture

This image shows the brick wall.

3. Crop the image, removing any potentially troublesome areas.

This image shows Crop tool has taken away part of the image.

4. Then resize image to be power of 2.

This image shows the Image size setting in power of 2.

5. Press filter on top software tool bar than select other option and then select offset.

This image shows the right setting for offset.

This image shows that the clone tool created a copy of the top part of the image.

7. Use Sharpen tool to get rid of the blur but do not over use Sharpen tool because we get bad effect.

8. Use dodge tool to make shadows lighter and burn tool to make highlights darker.

This image shows setting of NVIDIA Tool.

This image shows some effect that we can get from NVIDIA Tool.

8. Duplicate the layer until you get effect that you want.