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Thank you Gary for the June tutorial. This is my first one in a long time. I just purchased Xara 7 pro. I used a different car for the tutorial. I really like the effect that you came up with. Very well done. Question, if the car that you're going to paint is a dark-color, how do you use the body color for the reflection transparency? does this affect only work with white cars? Thanks, Paul
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I think you'll find that it was Madalynne, who the tutorial belongs to.
Gary very kindly put it on XaraXone as a guest tutorial.
I'm sure though, that Gary or Madalynne can answer your question.
I only had a moderate amount of success but your effort looks very good to me.
The best way to find out is to TRY IT. :) Very nice job on the blue car.
You might have to do some tweaking of the white car using the levels settings.
Apply the transparency then see if the photo tools, specifically the Levels Tool makes any difference.
Thank you Gary,
I did TRY IT. And that's what brought up the question about using darker colors in this tutorial. I remember a prior tutorial, years back, that used the hue transparency to change the color. I believe that they were changing eye and hair colors in the tutorial. I will have to research it and play around. This tutorial was a bit different using the actual color of the car for highlights. I do want to thank you Gary for all the terrific tutorials that you do, even though this one was a guest tutorial. (As always, Madalynne did a terrific job on this one.) I'm always amazed on how well you simplify the most difficult projects. It takes a special kind of person to do that, and I'm not one of them. So, I do appreciate you and all your efforts.
Paul
Hue transparency effects lighter colors but has no noticeable effect on dark colors.
You might experiment with the Opacity Mask feature. I think you copy an image then apply the image as an Opacity mask over another image or color.
I'd say that worked very well, Psaumure.
in this example, I cut out the body of the truck and use the back overlay as the mask. I applied a hue transparency to the black overlay. I then went to the color palette and drag the colors to change the color of the truck. The original truck is the blue one. But this only works on colored paint jobs. It will not work with black or white. It's only a single layer to create this effect, no additional transparency layers.
Psaumure:
You are welcome for the tutorial, and the color looks good, but I black area looks like it needs a minor tweek, but the effect you have looks good. =)
To answer your question, so far I have not found a way to really change the color of a dark color car (dark grey or black) into another color (red, yellow) - which is why I stated that the process would not work for a dark color in tutorial, page 1. I have tried a few things but nothing seems to work well - at all. I've not given up, just haven't put in the time lately. With the new version of XDP6 & XDP7 and the features available, there may be something to help me with this issue - I wont know until I can give some more time to the issue.
Change the color with the transparency (hue) is rather easy on colors like the monster truck image you have there, however you will also what to make a relief cut in the shape to allow the parking lights, and decals (windows & chrome trim - yes, it shows) on the truck body to preserver there true color and not be influenced by the color change. I mention this only because your image shows you haven't done that step, at least not yet.
Thank you Madalynne, I greatly appreciate the time and effort that you put into creating the tutorial. You kept it simple and did a great job. I enjoy using Xara for working on photos and I thought your tutorial was rather clever. Regarding the monster truck, that photo was done as a prank on a friend of mine. I told him, "There is somebody out there that has a truck just like yours, except it's a different color." Then, I e-mailed him the picture. I did not spend much time on the cut out, so the whole thing was rather rough but good enough for prank.
The car I posted was just a test to make sure that I have the process down from your tutorial. I have not decided on a final project yet that I would like to use the techniques that I have learned from your tutorial on. I am just getting back into using Xara, I have not been on TG for a couple of years due to illness. I am better now and I am looking forward to having some fun again here on TG. BP and I were doing quite a bit back then. I will have to look him up and see what he's up to.
Thank you again for your participation here on TG. This is a great forum and I for one certainly have learned a lot and hopefully have helped others here on the forum.