Paint Shop Pro support - Pointing to areas on a photo

Author

Pointing to areas on a photo

Dave Fawthrop

2005-06-28, 7:34 pm

Hi! I am not an artist and can not draw a straight or curved line to save
my life :-( Any attempt at complex things would only confuse the viewer
and myself.

I have very old copies of several graphics apps including Paint Shop Pro 5,
Coral photo paint Select edtion, Arcsoft Photostudio 5.5, which I have only
used to change from one format to another and such simple operations.

What I want to do is probably simplicity itself, but the help systems
assume more knowledge than I have.

I have lots of photos of rocks (640*480 by force Majeure) and want to point
out various irregular, ring or circular/oval areas on the rocks, in such a
way that the rock can be seen through the additions. It must be obvious
that this was done with a computer.

I would like to draw a layer of diagonal hatching, or something in a
contrasting colour over a small area of rock, and rub out anything not in
the irregular areas.
An untouched version of the photo will also be available to the viewer for
comparison. The objects pointed to may *not* be visible on the photo, and
may be very difficult to see when looking directly at the rock.

Could someone point me in the right direction, without buying expensive
software which I will never use to more than a tiny fraction of its
capacity.

--
Dave Fawthrop <dave hyphenologist co uk> http://www.webshots.com
Thousands of wonderful professional photos for your Wallpaper and
Screensaver. also 200,000 amateur pics. Four new pics each day.

Fred Hiltz

2005-06-28, 7:34 pm

Dave Fawthrop wrote:
> ... I want to point out various irregular, ring or circular/oval
> areas on the rocks, in such a way that the rock can be seen
> through the additions. It must be obvious that this was done
> with a computer.
>
> I would like to draw a layer of diagonal hatching, or something
> in a contrasting colour over a small area of rock, and rub out
> anything not in the irregular areas...
>
> Could someone point me in the right direction, without buying
> expensive software which I will never use to more than a tiny
> fraction of its capacity.

Sorry I do not know PSP 5, but look for preset shapes in it. Later
versions of PSP are hardly expensive--you may even qualify for the
upgrade price--and contain preset shapes of many kinds: pointing
hands, thought bubbles, callouts, plain and fancy arrows, ellipses,
etc. etc.

All of these are easily resized, rotated, changed in color, and made
translucent. Their shapes can be edited if you want a custom arrow,
for example. They reside on a layer above the photo. The visibility
of that layer can be switched on and off when making your comparison
image.
--
Fred Hiltz, fhiltz at yahoo dot com
C-Tech volunteer