Creating a circle filled with colors

[KeithNJ]

I tried paint but cannot get it to work.

Need to create a globe logo with 3 solid colors for business cards. In this case, blue, green and white equal size from top to bottom.

Thank you.
Keith

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

It would be better to use a vector application for creating logos, then you can export the design at different resolutions to suit different purposes.

Paint works fine here, but it's not the easiest to use for drawing circles of a precise size. Holding shift will constrain the aspect ratio, but there is no feedback on the size.

Do you have any vector apps?

[jazzman]

It can be done.

You may already know this: first be aware that every image is rectangular, so you need to create your circle on a background colour, e.g. black or gray. You can later make the background transparent by saving the image as .gif

Now for the "painting":

Create a new image via Shift+N, size e.g. width=600 x height=300. Also choose your background colour here.
Now select a rectangle of width=300, height=100 in the top right corner and use the floodfill bucket tool in IrfanPaint to make it blue. Make green and white boxes below that in the same way.

Now use the IrfanPaint stamp tool, define diameter=300 and copy (right click) from the right half of your image onto the background in the left half (left click). - Done!

[KeithNJ]

Thank you both for your helpful replies.

[Sprintdriver]

I'll suggest learning to use a more apropriate editing program such as Inkscape.

[Mij]

There are a number of free drawing programs that clearly would be better for creating logos for a plain business card. If the card carries an image though and the logo is superimposed like a watermark Irfanview might prove useful, and for superimposing a watermark on a range of images using a Batch process then Irfanview is a serious contender even if the logo has to be imported from another program.

When I saw Jazzman's method of creating this striped logo it occurred to me that a lot of it could be done in Irfanview without using the Paint plugin. I wondered if it could all be done without Paint, and found that yes it could.

I have listed the steps below and attached images of the menu and dialog settings that I used.

1. Options menu>Properties/Settings> Browsing/Editing. Choose a suitable color for "Cut" actions - one that will not be used in the logo (Pale purple used)
2. Image menu>Create new (empty) image, or Shift+N. Create a new empty image the size of a single stripe (300x100)- any color OK.
3. Ctrl+A, to put a selection box around the whole image. Edit menu>Cut selection or Ctrl+X, to change the image to the "Cut color".
4. Replace Color with color required for bottom stripe. Image menu>Replace color... Left click on image to set "Source color" to same as "Cut color". Click on lower "Choose" button to select the "New color" (white) in the color settings dialog.
5. Edit menu>Remove/Insert Strip..>Insert horizontal strip, to create next stripe up. Use Replace color as (4) to change to "New color" (green).
Repeat Insert horizontal strip to create top stripe. Use Replace color to "New color" (blue)
6. Hold down Ctrl key and left click anywhere on image to remove selection box. File menu>Save As or S, to save image as file "Bars.png"



7. Image menu>Create new (empty) image, or Shift+N. Create another new image (500x500) color white, to hold a Circle mask.
8. Edit menu>Insert text or Ctrl+T, to insert a 300 pixel diameter black circle (Black circle replaces lower case letter "l" in Wingdings font. Size 380 points). Set Text background color to something not used in logo (suggested Pale purple again)
9. Draw 300x300 selection box around black circle. (Hint: Ctrl+H to set zoom ratio to 100%. If difficult to set, draw roughly to size, press Shift+C to open Custom Selection dialog, edit Width and Height to 300. Press "Save and Apply to image" then use Arrow keys to move selection into exact position). Edit menu>Crop Selection or Ctrl+Y, to crop image to required size (300x300).
10. File menu>Save As or S, to save image with transparency as "Circle.png". Make sure "Save Transparent Color" is checked in PNG Save Options then press Save.
11. Choose transparent color by left clicking on black circle in window that appears.



12. Open Bars.png then Edit menu>Insert overlay/watermark image. Choose Circle.png as Overlay/Watermark image and select "Center" above. Set "Overlay transparency" to 0%. Press "Preview" and if it looks right press "OK"
13. Save image As "Watermark.png" with transparency ("Save Transparent Color" checked in PNG save options). This time when "Choose transparent color" window opens left click on pale purple surround in one of the 4 corners.
14. To use the watermark open a picture image then Edit menu>Insert overlay/watermark image. Choose Watermark.png as Overlay/Watermark image and select which corner you want the watermark to appear in. X and Y coordinate values can be set to inset the watermark away from that corner. Press Preview and if it looks right press OK. Save the Watermarked picture image.