Free cutouts images of tree, people and free textures

[Robert W - "robban"]

Hi All Friends!
There is an architectural firm out there named Vyonyx that has decided to share its resources with the general public. As you know, most architectural renderings include pictures of people, trees, etc. to give the plans a natural look and feel. Vyonyx has cut out hundreds of such items for their own use, and have kindly made them available to you and me for our unqualified use. They even have Comments sections so you can thank them! Use these links to explore:
People http://vyonyx.com/category/down/cutout-people/
Trees http://vyonyx.com/category/down/cutout-trees/

You are also welcome to download their Textures if you wish.
http://vyonyx.com/category/down/tex/

Vyonx use 3 different file formats *.jpg; *.tif; *.psd for there images They have also a file with icon at the end of the name, *_icon.jpg,  this file is a cutout already but in small size and quality.
I will do a tutorial on my Flickr-group to Corel PSP X2 how to make transparent images to use in TFP whit purple background.
/Robert

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for bringing these to our attention, they are very useful and so cheap!!

It is a shame they are not in BMP format already for those not familiar with photoediting programs but one cannot complain when they are totally free!!

I have tried a tree and a woman, but they did involve a bit of time to change to Magenta background.  The tree still ended up with a pink fringe as the white background of this particular tree was not a true white all over, so the 'colour replace' did not work perfectly.  I little more time would fix that of course. There is also a fine white line around the woman but would not be a problem unless you were really close.

The big advantage with these images of course is that they are already cut out, which is the most time consuming part, so it is an excellent resourse.

Thanks again Robert,

Allan

[Robert W - "robban"]

Thanks Allan! You have done a great work with the files if you go to my tutorial on Flickr for PSP http://www.flickr.com/groups/tutorial_corel_pspp_x-x2/ you can see how to do it the esay way

It is a shame they are not in BMP format already for those not familiar with photoediting programs but one cannot complain when they are totally free!!

I don't know how many program still use bmp with key-color instead of png

Robert

[Doug.S]

I downloaded one female .zip file which contained a 4MB .psd file as well as the .jpg icon. The .jpg is used just for simple viewing the picture at lower resolution.

.psd is a native Photoshop file format and the checkered gray/white squares shows the background has been carefully cutout.

Now here is where using the .png format would be great in TFP...just save the .psd as a .png and and it is done and ready to use.


However lacking that ability in TFP.... all you have to do is add magenta to the .psd background and save as a .bmp file to use in TFP.

Don't have Photoshop?;   2 possible solutions....
I think there is an on-line web page at Adobe (owners of Ps) to run .psd files...never used it so not positive it is still available for free.

Or there may be a program (Irfanview?) free that reads .psd files and can save in another format.

If you have Illustrator you can import .psd files.

Not using the .jpg file is much better/faster....but you need a program that reads .psd files.

THANKS for the links!!!

[Draftcad]

Robert,

Thank you!! this is great!

For a 100% free photo editing program --> http://www.serif.com/free-photo-editing-software/php-se.asp
Actually, they have several free programs, and they work great
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/

Pat

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Robert,

if you go to my tutorial on Flickr for PSP http://www.flickr.com/groups/tutorial_corel_pspp_x-x2/ you can see how to do it the esay way

I did do it that way, in fact I tried several ways to see which worked best.

In the image below I have added the second tree (on left) that used the alpha channel in its original form, but it still gave the pink fringes.  The problem is that even the alpha channel image has some grey shaded pixels around the fringes, so when the Magenta colour shows through, these pixels change the colour from a true RGB 255, 0, 255, to a slightly different colour number, so it is no longer Magenta and hence no longer transparent in TFP.

In the third tree, (the one on the right), I dramatically increased the alpha channel image contrast, so that there were no longer any grey pixels, only black and white ones, so this has removed the pink fringes and comes out well. I have added this to my collection.

The woman was done from a PSD but it too has some white fringing particularly around the handbag, where the original cutout could have been closer, but that is easily fixed.

I have only had time to play with these two images, so can't comment on the others obviously. These issues may not exist on the others.

I will have a good look through them as there are quite a number I can use, so thanks again for alerting us to them.

Allan

[Doug.S]

There are a few clever tricks in Photoshop (and probably can be done in similar photo editing programs) to make the edges along a cutout with no "gray" (not a clean cut from the background) areas of color or transparency from "off" color pixels....

- one way is to re-make the selection separating the object from the background...then add or subtract from the selection (increase or decrease, or expand or contract) by one or more pixels along the outline edge before filling the background with magenta....you lose a very small edge along the object outline but the "cut" is clean.  (be sure "feather" is set to zero)

- another way is to use a layer trim...using matte, fringe adjustment

- lastly, more difficult but very exacting....convert selection to a path (as accurate as possible...to 1 pixel or less) ...then manually adjust the path as needed

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Doug,

I did try those too.  Expanding the selection did not work as the extra pixels were inconsistant - sometimes none and other times 3 or 4 and the path metod was way too tedious especially on the tree!  At least the tree had the alpha channel and removing the grey pixels with the Contrast control was instant, so that was by far the quickest and resulted in a good image.

Allan

[Draftcad]

An additional note regarding this topic, and at the same time, it is a feature request (I will post this request also in the section)

I am not sure why, for TFP, the transparent color is magenta (255,0,255) but in my experience with 3D rendering, the transparency works better using black (0,0,0). Using black transparency, in the worst case scenario, if you have extra pixels with undefined color, they will look as a gray shadow. A magenta shadow looks really odd

If the cutout image is well defined, just adding an extra layer with the transparency color should work nicely. So, I downloaded one of the wrought iron elements in the textures section of http://vyonyx.com/category/down/tex/ and I did few tests. I added one layer with black color for image #1 (and I rendered it with a 3D render program) and I added one layer with magenta color for image #2 (and I rendered it with TFP)

You can see the difference with the extra pixels in the images attached

Pat

[Robert W - "robban"]

I am not sure why, for TFP, the transparent color is magenta (255,0,255) but in my experience with 3D rendering, the transparency works better using black (0,0,0). Using black transparency, in the worst case scenario, if you have extra pixels with undefined color, they will look as a gray shadow. A magenta shadow looks really odd

That I think abut why they use magenta color is because the file format BMP have no transparent channel, and this color is not  normal in the nature. Tee best request as lot of members have suggest that they ad support for png instead for bmp.

/Robert

[Draftcad]

I don't think so....
You can set the transparent color as magenta or green or black or... is just programming

Pat

[Doug.S]

better still is to use an alpha channel....in which case NO color shows as an added factor for transparency...

i.e. if the alpha channel is inexact, only more or less of the actual image is shown....and the transparency varies in usually 256 levels, variable anywhere, not just on/off everywhere....thus giving more user control

Hence the desired use of .png (or other alpha channel holding file formats...such as a layered .tif or even .pdf)...and the use of most any high quality bitmap program that uses alpha channels...so no need for any special tools in TFP.

Alpha channels usually use white thru black.....white being fully transparent and black as opaque...with any level of gray as a percentage of transparency....and they have been a standard in imaging for decades.