Repainting

BadPvtDan · Post by **BadPvtDan** » 06 Jun 2007, 16:56

OK I know this has been gone over many times before but...what programs are used for repainting.

MIKE JG · Post by **MIKE JG** » 06 Jun 2007, 16:59

Danny most folks will use one of the better programs like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. I believe that you can use just about any graphic program like MSPaint or FS Painter.

Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro allow you to create layers so they really are best for doing good quality repaints.

RipPipPip · Post by **RipPipPip** » 06 Jun 2007, 17:03

A freeware Gimp for hardcore idealists

nickblack423 · Post by **nickblack423** » 07 Jun 2007, 07:18

I must admit Danny, until recently I always used to use MSPaint for all my texturing and repaints. However Ive now realised the error of my ways and become a Photoshop Guru. Must say now I can use it, it makes me wonder why I ever bothered with paint. I dont use paint at all now.

Nick

benclark · Post by **benclark** » 07 Jun 2007, 20:58

Using MSPaint for textures, good thing your using Photoshop now Nick, there's a special place reserved for those sinners

of course PSP also exempts you (I use it after all)

Graham King · Post by **Graham King** » 20 Jun 2007, 21:45

I Use Paint Shop Pro. It has the added extra of a macro language which allows me to produce a lot of paints accurately, I was always getting the registration wrong, and very quickly.

MIKE JG · Post by **MIKE JG** » 21 Jun 2007, 01:31

Graham,

I too use PSP and one question I've always wanted to ask you is how you make text appear on your repaints when the text is very, very small. IOW how do you make it show up so that it's not all pixelated to the point where it's not recognizable?

benclark · Post by **benclark** » 21 Jun 2007, 13:49

Anti-aliasing your text against the background colour will help avoid that pixelated look.

MikeyW · Post by **MikeyW** » 21 Jun 2007, 18:06

I initially started with MSPaint (which is good for VERY VERY simple work), then fell in love with Photoshop because it was so powerful (with layers, you can do whole squadrons in minutes). I use DXT2BMP to convert the product to a DXT texture. GIMP has the benefit of being free, but its interface is not as nice as Photoshop, and it doesn't handle text nearly as well. For my setup, DXT2BMP defaults to MSPaint as the editor, since it loads MUCH faster than Photoshop, and all I do with it is Select All-Copy-Paste the image from the 24 bit bitmap file to the DXT texture file. Pretty much all of the graphic editors work with each other's file formats, or at least you can save Gimp files to one of the more popular formats like Photoshop. MS Paint won't work with layers, so you have to flatten a GIMP or Photoshop file and save it as a bmp before you can load it into MSPaint or DXT2BMP. Converting a DXT file to bmp always results in a degraded poduct for me (the colors tend to be washed out).

SMOC · Post by **SMOC** » 21 Jun 2007, 18:13

Could anyone be so kind as to inform me what fonts are used on the US aircraft? Whenever I do a personal repaint I am unable to match the fonts... thank you.

MIKE JG · Post by **MIKE JG** » 21 Jun 2007, 19:04

The font is called "Amarillo USAF".

If you do an internet search you shoud be able to find a site or two that has it freely available for your particular paint program.

Search for "free fonts" or something like that.

monkie · Post by **monkie** » 21 Jun 2007, 19:13

I have the same issue with text... can't get it to look just right. Whenever I use Amarillo USAF the letters seem too bold. I would like to know how they were able to get the nice finely detailed #'s on the tail of the NBAI F-15's.

I was using PSP for most of my repaints but have now started using Photoshop also... it can be a little fustrating going back and forth between the two and mixing up keys. In the end they pretty much do the same thing.

JC

Graham King · Post by **Graham King** » 21 Jun 2007, 19:41

I think I know the trick you are after. When writing vector text I very rarely use the foreground, I just use the background colour and leave the foreground switched off. If I do want it thicker I just use the bold font.

I find Amarillo USAF very good for small and very small text. When it is very small you cannot read it but you can still tell it is text. I am happy to use it at font size 2 if required. When it is very small it also gives good results if you have to squeeze or stretch it to make the text line the correct size.

The other thing to watch for is the font colour, a lot are not actually black. The USAF use a colour called FS 17038, it's corresponding RGB colour is 44, 41, 38 or if your progam has the option you can paste in it's HTML equivalent 2c2926. They also very rarley use white outside of squadron markings and badges, it is FS 17925, RGB 250, 247, 241 and HTML faf7f1 used on the flag but also the standard colour for landing gears and their bays. The blue on the flag is FS 15044, RGB 38, 48, 66, HTML 263042. The red is FS 11136, RGB 163, 43, 37, HTML a32b25.

Pilot james · Post by **Pilot james** » 21 Jun 2007, 19:43

Hi Guys,
Im a newbie at wanting to repaint a aircraft and i dont know what things and how to paint it.
Please could somebody write a list of what programs i need to point me in the right direction.
Thanks James

RipPipPip · Post by **RipPipPip** » 21 Jun 2007, 20:12

Hey James,
you can find the program list above and here is the best repaint tutorial that I know:
http://www.calclassic.com/repaint.htm

Graham King · Post by **Graham King** » 21 Jun 2007, 20:21

Another good place is http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/

It also has colour swatches and downloads for insignia and fonts.

I also use DXTBmp for compiling my paints. I find it does a better job than Image Tool.

I have also put some links to sources I use here.

Weescotty · Post by **Weescotty** » 21 Jun 2007, 20:21

SMOC wrote:Could anyone be so kind as to inform me what fonts are used on the US aircraft? Whenever I do a personal repaint I am unable to match the fonts... thank you.

Nice Amarillo (free) font here -

http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/forums/cat19.html

Pilot james · Post by **Pilot james** » 21 Jun 2007, 20:29

Thanks so much for that. Can you use photoshop instead of paint shop pro 7 ??

James

monkie · Post by **monkie** » 22 Jun 2007, 16:36

Graham King wrote:I think I know the trick you are after. When writing vector text I very rarely use the foreground, I just use the background colour and leave the foreground switched off. If I do want it thicker I just use the bold font..

I have done that also with PSP but can't seem to find a way to do it in Photoshop... anybody know?

JC

SMOC · Post by **SMOC** » 24 Jun 2007, 12:22

MIKE JG wrote:The font is called "Amarillo USAF".

If you do an internet search you shoud be able to find a site or two that has it freely available for your particular paint program.

Search for "free fonts" or something like that.

Thanks for the answers guys... I appreciate the time it takes to not only answer/moderate the forum but also continue to crank out quality AI aircraft and supporting materials.