You have to realize he loves and has the time to draw and will work hour up hour
just to make an image presentable where hopefully it will not be criticized.
This page explains how he revised ship plans into detailed images.
"MICROSOFT PAINT" is his drawing tool and
"PAINT SHOP PRO" is his final web imaging tool.
Anything thing else is too expensive and really un-necessary.
Making images from scratch is much easier.
You don't have to work around things that are in your way.
The same tools shown below still apply.
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The goal here is to create ship plans of the Neosho Class Oilers build in the 1950's. EXAMPLE The final
image at right was created as explained below.
The 03 deck plan, where the 3 in. / 50 Cal. Twin Mounts were located was edited then superimposed over the deck plans below. Another major point, have the image set at the scale you want it as a finished product. Any attempt to resize it later as a gif file will ruin it. A future jpg file may work but will become fuzzy. |
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This is how the origanl plans appeared when he received them from Darrell Oman FTG2 71-79 crew member of USS Kawishiwi AO-146. |
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You need to know up front, to write clear text on a Paint image, you need a clear area where text will appear. EXAMPLE:
You can also
Click (B) "White" on color bar
at bottom of window using another
tool which will not be explained here.
Spot your
mouse at upper left area of space you want to clear and pull to right
and down to cover area to be cleared.Click tool (C) to start text writer. This tool will only work when window is in view "Normal Size" The plan
image has thousands of different shades and colors when you start.
After all of those shades are cut down to 6 or 8 colors. Vern used
Paint Shop Pro to set the color pallet for each drawing. He than
re-typed any text wrote because the software had dithered it, used
several shades of color to creat the text. Vern likes the text to be
one color, only.
Click color (D) to set the text colors. |
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The first chore is to redraw the lines, using one color. Use green (A) to outline the area to
made a line clear. Any
contrasting color can be used.
(continued below)Click LINE tool (B) and make the lines wide by clicking width in space (C). To get a clear image of the area to be worked, click (D) "View" |
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When "View" feature is chosen, click "Zoom" (A) the "Large Size" (B). A new view will appear, allowing you to see each pixel. An even larger view is available in "custom" option. |
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In the first
area to revise (A), follow the original lines with the green paint brush.
Next pick color "Black" (B) and new line width (C) being one pixel wide. Draw the final line wanted within the green area. Being green, again any other solid color, you know the area to draw the black line is all one color, not 100 colors. You need to do this for every original line to be drawn clearly in the drawing. You can clear big open spaces using the step 3 instructions. |
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On color bar at bottom of window Pick an outline color (A)
On tool bar,
click (B) "Paint Bucket"
Run your
mouse carefully
through the green area (C) to leave only the lines you
want.
In this drawing, two shades of gray wanted could also be used but this senario can wait. |
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Writing text, as mentioned before can only be written in "View" Normal size. There is one more requirement. It can be written in Opaque only if the desired background is white. To turn off "Draw Opaque", click (A). Click (B) "Image" and "un check". I learned later, the tool bar on left has, at this same time, a box to set "Opaque", dah! Pick text "color" (C) Start "text writter" (D) A fonts window stays up while you type and make font choices. Type text desired as shown at (E). Notice just below nad to left, a rectangle is highlighted in white. aling with that, further down is a gray area with a blue border. This can not happen when doing text. It is displayed because I made an error in the sampe image. BUT, this is another way to make a large area, solid, in any color you choose. |
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Go To WEB SERVICE PAGE or SHIP PLANS