HR+Skinning+with+Photoshop

By DeanH

Well, here we go then

This will be a page that allows for a collection of photoshop based notes and techniques regarding HR skinning for EAW (of course).

For my part I intend making a list of different techniques I use most for many of the normal jobs I have to do in PS (CS2) - of course most other versions of PS work the same way anyway. I've been using PS since version 2 so I'll try to warn you if it works different in older versions.



**Accessing the correct colours for EAW skinning****
First off, It's important to know how to deal with the palettes (256 indexed colours) and how to ensure you are not drifting too far away from them while you work.

The simplest method I have found so far is to:

1.Open any indexed colour pcx for the AC you intend painting.

2.Go to **'Image/Mode'** and down to **'colour table'** - then click 'save' on the palette that comes up, this will bring up the save colour table dialogue. The option for file format should read ***.act** - for 'adobe colour table'.

Give it a name you'll recognise and save it to a location where you can find it, as they are tiny files it is easy to save it right in there with your pcx's for this AC.

Now, back in photoshop, go across to the colour palette (usually on the right side) and select the tab marked **'Swatches'** -and look for the tiny 'right pointing' black triangle just under the title bar at the top, click this. From here select the option **'Replace Swatches...'** now you can go and find the *.act file you saved earlier.

Once you select that *.act file and ok your way back to photoshp, you will find you now have the indexed EAW palette for your chosen aircraft as your available palette. It will stay there till YOU change it (perhaps for your next AC type). When you are using any paint tool and pass it over this swatch it will change to an eyedropper and you can sample the correct palette colour to paint with.



**Replace colours easily**
There are times when you want to replace ALL the colours of, for example, a camo version. One example that comes to mind is the RAF camo, how could you get a spitfire from a Dark earth/ green to a later medium sea grey/green.

One of the main issues you will find with a job like this, is that normal 'painting' of a new colour would have the effect of wiping out any rivet/panel lines as well as shading and scratches etc. I'm going to show you 2 major photoshop techniques that will save you HOURS of work.

Starting with a picture that is in **RGB** format **(-Image/mode/rgb colour)** have a look at the bottom of your tools palette. Just below the foreground/background colour squares (2 overlapping squares of colour) you can see 2 buttons both of which show a circle, one white on a white BG and the other a white circle on a grey BG. **This is also known as "Quick Mask" in PSP!** If you click the one on a grey BG you will enter mask painting mode, and this is brilliant for eaw skinning work. You will find that now you can PAINT where you want to select, as opposed to lassoing or dragging rectangles around things. This allows you to create some really intricate masks/selections. Now, make sure your brush is at 100%opacity and you can select an appropriate brush shape/size and start painting, the results will look like a red film appearing over your selected area so try and paint over just the areas you want to change colours.


 * Remember: right click and change your brushtip often**, get it right for the job you are doing small, large, soft edge, hard edge. They are ALL available here.

If you need to **remove** some of the mask, **tap the "x" key** on your keyboard and your brush will now 'remove' masking. Another tap on the x key and you will return to painting on the mask.

Once you paint over the areas of brown (in this example) and clean up the edges (x key) and you are happy with your selected area, click the OTHER button on the tool palette - the one with a white circle on a white bg, **et VOILA!** here come the 'marching ants' - you will see that there is a selection made, which covers everything EXCEPT the area you painted on, so, hit **Ctrl-Shift-i** and it will reverse the selection and you NOW have the part we want to change selected!! (ie. just the brown camo area)

That's big trick No.1, now for No.2.

Now, select your **paintbrush tool** again, and go over to the palette, select an appropriate grey for the medium sea grey colour we want our camo to be. Try and select it from **somewhere in the middle area** of a bunch of graduated greys, that way the transition of these colours back to indexed colour will be smooth, and should stay close to your choice.

OK, now, don't worry about painting anything as we won't use the paintbrush to do this, instead we'll use the power of photoshop.

Hit **Ctrl-u** this brings up the Hue/Saturation palette. - NOW because we have **PRE-selected** our favourite grey colour photoshop knows THAT is the way we want to go, so, if you click on the small 'colorize' box on the bottom right of the palette photoshop will do all of the work for you, it will apply YOUR grey to all colours it finds in your selected area. If the colour there is 'lighter' the grey will be 'lighter' (hilights) and if the colour is 'darker' the grey will be 'darker' too (panels rivets shadows etc.) and BANG you have now successfully updated the spitfire from mkII to MkIX in just a couple of moves!!



OK, that'll do for now -my head is aching, back later with a few more tips for EAW skinning in Photoshop.