IrfanPaint Plugin for IrfanView

[Skippybox]

I use IrfanView for almost all my work. However I need to turn to slow, bumbling GIMP, for freehand selection of portions of my images. For example, selecting just the person and later, flood-filling the background...

It would be great to have a Freehand Selection Tool under IrfanPaint, like GIMP or PhotoShop has! I'm ready to wait, if need be! Cheers!

Just use Faststone Image Viewer, which has elliptical and free-hand selection tools, along with transparency support.

[WellOiledPC]

Just use Faststone Image Viewer, which has elliptical and free-hand selection tools, along with transparency support.

WoW, that was impressive research indeed! I'm sure it will prove beneficial to people!

Thanks for the suggestion! As I had posted earlier, I really do not have a problem with the way IrfanPaint works, for Text. It isn't easy to position text, but all my Text work is with a filled Text Box. Therefore I am quite okay with using a second instance of IrfanView, with the text added haphazardly into a large rectangle, I then cut/ copy and paste the text into the appropriate image! Occasionally I use PowerPoint too, for this - PowerPoint will let me use all kinds of shapes for the text box!

You could also say I'm too lazy to try FastStone

[Skippybox]

Thanks for the suggestion! As I had posted earlier, I really do not have a problem with the way IrfanPaint works, for Text.

I wasn't referring to text, that discussion came later. You requested a freehand selection tool in IrfanPaint to work with backgrounds.

Anyway, another tool besides Faststone Image Viewer and Faststone Capture, is Paintstar. It is very similar to IrfanPaint, but significantly more powerful. It supports layers, transparency, even has a magic wand! Paintstar is like a miniature version of GIMP, but way easier, lighter, and faster. It does have a few limitations though, like no background transparency and only 1-bit transparency saving like IV. But, for most projects that isn't too big a deal.

[Sam_Zen]

Paintstar is a nice one indeed..
Maybe a magic wand would be more powerful in many occasions than a point-to-point selection.
This depends on the background of the object of course.

[Skippybox]

Paintstar is a nice one indeed..
Maybe a magic wand would be more powerful in many occasions than a point-to-point selection.
This depends on the background of the object of course.

Oh yes, I could not imagine not using a magic wand for some backgrounds, especially one as complex as Mij's:



That is what you wanted Mij, some clouds, right?

I couldn't use Paintstar though, since it only has a contiguous wand. The scene is so difficult, it calls for a global wand. Even so, I had to restore some of the picture in IrfanPaint afterwards with the eraser after the excessive cutting. Then it was easy to generate some clouds in a layer behind it. But, I'm sure it could use some tweaking.

[Sam_Zen]

Another feature just came up while working :
Using the clone tool, it would be nice to have an optional constrain in the movement , f.e. with Shift.
It would avoid mistakes if moving precisely along horizontal or vertical edges of objects.

[WellOiledPC]

I wasn't referring to text, that discussion came later. You requested a freehand selection tool in IrfanPaint to work with backgrounds.

Anyway, another tool besides Faststone Image Viewer and Faststone Capture, is Paintstar. It is very similar to IrfanPaint, but significantly more powerful. It supports layers, transparency, even has a magic wand! Paintstar is like a miniature version of GIMP, but way easier, lighter, and faster. It does have a few limitations though, like no background transparency and only 1-bit transparency saving like IV. But, for most projects that isn't too big a deal.

Thanks Skippybox, I didn't know about PaintStar. Just downloaded and tried it, it could indeed be useful for Freehand Selection. Also note that it has up to 99 Undos, supports Layers, but has no Preferences... my images seem to open at 50%, by default... Interesting! As you pointed out, I could replace GIMP with PaintStar, for these functions!

[Mij]

Oh yes, I could not imagine not using a magic wand for some backgrounds, especially one as complex as Mij's:
That is what you wanted Mij, some clouds, right?
I couldn't use Paintstar though, since it only has a contiguous wand. The scene is so difficult, it calls for a global wand. Even so, I had to restore some of the picture in IrfanPaint afterwards with the eraser after the excessive cutting. Then it was easy to generate some clouds in a layer behind it. But, I'm sure it could use some tweaking.

Thanks Skippybox. I hope you have not been working on it ever since I posted on page 1 of this thread. Did you start from the image with the white sky or the blue one?

I tried magic wands in several different apps in an effort to create a good mask. That was why I was impressed by how much easier it was to paint a single color background with the Irfanpaint color replace tool. Over the tree branches you can use a large brush and a high color tolerance. For the tricky edges of the building you can change to a small brush with a low color tolerance and where the edge is particularly difficult you can "paint" freehand. No magic wand gives you that amount of flexibility. If you make a mistake you have the brilliant restore tool to make local corrections.

At present you then do have to change to another app to replace the single color with a background image using all that baggage of wands, masks and layers. So I do hope that MItaly can implement my request to extend the replace color method to allow other brush sources such as a cloned or original image to be used. Then you could do it all without ever leaving Irfanpaint.

[Mij]

Another feature just came up while working :
Using the clone tool, it would be nice to have an optional constrain in the movement , f.e. with Shift.
It would avoid mistakes if moving precisely along horizontal or vertical edges of objects.

Have you tried using Martin Vicanek's Wire Worm 8bf plugin to clone straight edges? Not quite what it is said to be for but I find it quite useful.

For instance in the first image I am trying to remove the smaller chimney, so the first thing I do is select the area around the chimney base and then drag it up the roof line as in the second image. The fine adjustment tools let you find a good match. After you have detached the chimney from the roof it is much easier to clone away the remainder.

What I do miss in Irfanpaint is a smudge brush to blur over any nasties after cloning. That is why I have to use Paintstar as well.

[Skippybox]

I didn't know about PaintStar. Just downloaded and tried it, it could indeed be useful for Freehand Selection. Also note that it has up to 99 Undos, supports Layers, but has no Preferences... my images seem to open at 50%, by default... Interesting! As you pointed out, I could replace GIMP with PaintStar, for these functions!

Don't forget to try selecting regions using the Bezier curves/Paths feature. Can be quite superior to freehand selection in certain situations.

Those 99 potential Undos can come in handy, especially when IrfanView only has one. Of course, it has been discussed how the one Undo is very useful in IrfanPaint and I agree.

Not all images will open in 50%. PaintStar has preset zoom levels and will do a best fit to one of them, depending on the size of the image. So, you might get 100%, 33%, 13%, etc.

Yes, PaintStar could replace GIMP for some things, but it can't completely. Like I said, PaintStar has several limitations, including limited transparency and layer support. You definitely can feel restricted with it sometimes, but it has several features that other more powerful apps lack (plus Win95 support!). So, I still keep GIMP for the difficult stuff.

Even GIMP, as powerful as it is, still lacks 16-bit editing, which is kind of unbelievable. So, you do have to find other painting programs in some instances.

[Frank]

My favored (free) image editor is PhotoFiltre!
(In some functions this program could be a model for the plugin IrfanPaint!)


see also:
- "The official forum of PhotoFiltre"
- "PhotoFiltreSupportde"
- "Anleitung zur Bildbearbeitung mit PhotoFiltre"

[Skippybox]

I hope you have not been working on it ever since I posted on page 1 of this thread.

A long and difficult six months for me, but it was worth it, I'm sure. Just kidding! No, I played around with it yesterday when I was working in PaintStar. Sadly, I had to abandon that program for it, since it didn't look promising.

Did you start from the image with the white sky or the blue one?

The white one, that was the point, right? You wanted to change the white sky to a blue one with some clouds. You also preferred it to look as real as possible by using an actual sky. I didn't use a real one though. I moved over to Paint.NET, which has a nice custom cloud renderer. Paintstar can do cloud texture as well, but it is severely limited.

[ATTACH]1387[/ATTACH]

I tried magic wands in several different apps in an effort to create a good mask. That was why I was impressed by how much easier it was to paint a single color background with the Irfanpaint color replace tool. Over the tree branches you can use a large brush and a high color tolerance. For the tricky edges of the building you can change to a small brush with a low color tolerance and where the edge is particularly difficult you can "paint" freehand. No magic wand gives you that amount of flexibility.

I agree no magic wand is perfect, but it can do a lot of work in a short time. The problem is that most wands don't work the same, some are better than others. That is why I chose the Paint.NET wand, since it has a global selection option to pick out the white in one click. Photoshop products have a good wand, too. I really didn't want to spend time doing a lot of painting. So, I chose a high tolerance for the wand and cut the sky out. I do wish Paint.NET had some feathering, though.

From there I saved it with the alpha transparency.

If you make a mistake you have the brilliant restore tool to make local corrections.

Actually, I used the restore tool in IP to repaint areas that were made transparent, but were not supposed to be (e.g. the building). By using a foreign background color it made it easier to correct and save the transparency as 1-bit afterwards.



From there, I reloaded it into Paint.NET onto the cloud layer.

[ATTACH]1870[/ATTACH]

One problem though was the trees. First off, the picture is great, but it was a bad image to work on, being that you already saved it as JPG twice. The artifacts give you trouble around the branches. It would be nice to enhance them, but the image was small, too. The camera is also to blame, I'm sure, since contrast is tricky. They do blend OK though in a light sky, but a darker one will give you trouble. Fiddling with the trees is probably what would need the most work to get the image to look just right. Nonetheless, for the time involved, it isn't likely worth it, since few will notice.

Now that I think about it, you could probably could achieve close to that with PaintStar by importing the image as a new layer and adjusting the transparency tolerance. The results might not be as good however, and you still would likely need to touch up with IP's restore tool.

At present you then do have to change to another app to replace the single color with a background image using all that baggage of wands, masks and layers. So I do hope that MItaly can implement my request to extend the replace color method to allow other brush sources such as a cloned or original image to be used. Then you could do it all without ever leaving Irfanpaint.

I can see the benefits of what you are talking about, especially if you can cut down on saving copies and moving back and forth. Not all images are as straightforward as yours though, so those masks and special selections which IP can't deliver are often still necessary. I still like other programs, even if IP is pretty powerful. OTOH, it isn't right to make it do everything. Besides, some of those complicated tools can be fun in other apps.

[WellOiledPC]

My favored (free) image editor is PhotoFiltre!
(In some functions this program could be a model for the plugin IrfanPaint!)

see also:
- "The official forum of PhotoFiltre"
- "PhotoFiltreSupportde"
- "Anleitung zur Bildbearbeitung mit PhotoFiltre"

Thanks Frank! I tried PhotoFiltre just now and think it is pretty neat too! I'm keeping it (as well as PaintStar) for now!

Don't forget to try selecting regions using the Bezier curves/Paths feature. Can be quite superior to freehand selection in certain situations.

Those 99 potential Undos can come in handy, especially when IrfanView only has one. Of course, it has been discussed how the one Undo is very useful in IrfanPaint and I agree.

Not all images will open in 50%. PaintStar has preset zoom levels and will do a best fit to one of them, depending on the size of the image. So, you might get 100%, 33%, 13%, etc.

Yes, PaintStar could replace GIMP for some things, but it can't completely. Like I said, PaintStar has several limitations, including limited transparency and layer support. You definitely can feel restricted with it sometimes, but it has several features that other more powerful apps lack (plus Win95 support!). So, I still keep GIMP for the difficult stuff.

Even GIMP, as powerful as it is, still lacks 16-bit editing, which is kind of unbelievable. So, you do have to find other painting programs in some instances.

Quite agree, Skippybox. The (few) reasons to open GIMP have suddenly shrunk considerably though!

[Mij]

A long and difficult six months for me, but it was worth it, I'm sure. Just kidding! No, I played around with it yesterday when I was working in PaintStar. Sadly, I had to abandon that program for it, since it didn't look promising.........

Actually, I used the restore tool in IP to repaint areas that were made transparent, but were not supposed to be (e.g. the building). By using a foreign background color it made it easier to correct and save the transparency as 1-bit afterwards.......

Yes, of course, that's the secret. Use a really contrasting color for the background. Then it is far easier to make a good cut out. Obvious really. Now why didn't I think of that?

I did the job again using the Color replacer in IrfanPaint with a vivid purple this time as background. I had to retouch a few of the branches to make it really good, but all the tools are there to hand in IP. Took about 20 minutes.

With so much contrast I found I could use the GML matting 8bf filter with Irfanview to do the cut out and then replace the background with some clouds. I could have used the mmcloud 8bf filter to create some synthetic clouds, a bit like you did, but I used some real ones instead from another image. You can do it either way with GML.

I am really impressed with how well it turned out and that I could do it all with Irfanview plugins. Here is a little clip from the finished image.

[Sam_Zen]

Impressed too. And, indeed, all done within IrfanView..
I lately discovered the use of the Color replacer in these matters as well, to repair some transparent areas.

edit:
If the background has a sufficient equal color range, another tool could be useful : the Flood fill.
It has a setting for tolerance percentage as well. And the fill color could be the one being transparent.
A problem here : areas, like the one with branches, are surrounded by bordering colors, so any area,
also very small, has to be clicked in to be filled.