Tint Guide : Java Glossary

Tint Guide is a small Russian company that makes number of overlapping utilities for processing photographs. They can be run standalone or as Photoshop Plug-ins. There are lite-free versions of most of them, that are still very useful. It is a bit confusing trying to figure out which utility does what. Happily you can download trial versions to figure out just what each one does.

The one I found most useful is called Picture Cutout Guide version 3.2.10 Last revised/verified: 2015-12-22. I use it remove backgrounds so I can have png files with transparent backgrounds. It does this much more quickly and accurately than any other tool I have tried. The free version makes you do the final transparency step in another program e.g. (Icon Lover). It can also be used to cut out objects and place them together in collages, i.e. it lets you extract someone from a picture and insert them in a completely different scene. Though the program is fairly complicated, it is very easy to learn because there are tutorials where they take you through dozens of examples of things you might want to do. You can pause them at any time. There is a tutorial for everything. This is so unlike most paint programs where you figure out only a small fraction of its capabilities. It does not work well on small images. I find large ones, trim the backgrounds, then shrink them in Icon Lover.

The most magical one is called Image Resize Guide Smart Image resize and shrink pictures. It lets you remove somebody from a picture and fake in the background where they stood, or squeeze things up without an obvious line.

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The Photo Montage Guide is a bundle containing the Picture Cutout Guide and the Image Resize Guide.

There are two tools that might be thought of as like virtual makeup for hiding wrinkles and blemishes and even virtual plastic surgery. There is also a tool to correct pet eyes.

Tips

In the lite version of Picture Cutout Guide, the way to get a image with a transparent background is to create a png with a white background then convert the white background to transparent in Icon Lover with the flood fill or colour replace.

In the full version, you need this strange incantation:

1. Click Store.
2. Click Done.
3. Click Paste Object.
4. Select the object.
5. Click Export.

I have absolutely no idea what those steps do. I just follow them and it works.