Does anyone know of any free or cheap image editing software which can change the background colour of a picture, ie, say you have something pictured against a grey uniform background & you want to change the background colour to black or white, I have Photoscape which is generally pretty good, but the only way I can see to do it with that would be to use the clone or paint tool which would be messy & time consuming. It's something I only need to do once & on around 100 images so really not looking for something of the likes of Photoshop or similar prices!

GIMP and no its not anything kinky it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program.

http://www.gimp.org/

Have just downloaded it - it looks very powerful, way more sophisticated than I need!!!

I've had a quick play & am struggling to do what I want, I'm guessing you use it frequently? What is the sequence of events to change the background colour behind an image, or how do I select what bits I want to change colour of? Any help much appreciated!

To be honest, I have no idea. I only use it to change the brightness, contrast and size. Yes its powerful, too powerful for what I need as well but its free. I am sure there are tutorials on the gimp website. Sorry I can not be more help than that.

Ok cheers will have a play!

If it can wait a week till I get back into the country I have a copy of an old paintshop pro 7 which is a happy medium (IMO) to the modern paintshops etc and basic paint packages that come with OS's.

[Edited on 15-10-14 by loggyboy]

Any idea if that will work with windows 7? I'm sure this Gimp software will do the trick, just having a little difficulty getting my head around it!

I've been using Serif PhotoPlus (and PagePlus and DrawPlus) for work. There are free starter editions or you can go for the full editions, which IMHO are really good value compared to the likes of PhotoShop.

http://www.serif.com/free-photo-editing-software/

The tool you need is Flood Fill or Flood Erase to change areas of the image. You set the sensitivity of the tool depending on how sharp youre images are and the contrast between adjacent colours. You can fine tune different areas using the polygon select tool if necessary.

if you want to send me an image I'm happy to have a go at one and show you what's possible. U2U for an email address.

Just downloading that one for a try now - if I'm still being thick I'll drop you a U2U!

Tried GIMP, could make head or tail of it.

At work I just use the win7 version of MS paint, basic but manageable.
At home I use a 'magazine cover' version of Paintshop Pro 5 from back in the day, ancient but works.
Have also used photoshop from time to time, on others machines and free trials. Very nice, but costly.


Daniel

[Edited on 15/10/2014 by dhutch]

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Originally posted by russbost
Any idea if that will work with windows 7? I'm sure this Gimp software will do the trick, just having a little difficulty getting my head around it!

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Don't let it install anything on the sly though, (Google Chrome etc)

Google Chrome is good!

Been using photoshop professionally since 1990, but I too struggled with gimp! Interface is very odd (or was when I tried it).

Sorry I couldn't help with a suggestion, just wanted to say you're not alone :-)

I'm not making a judgement on Google Chrome , I'm just saying watch out 'cos some of these free programs can be a bit sneaking by loading stuff.

Keep an eye out for an older version of Photoshop Elements. I got version 6 off Ebay, very reasonably, and it came complete with one of those "Classroom-in-a-Book" guides. Had it for a while, and am still on the learning curve. It will change background colours, once you work out the method, and it does run on Win 7.

Cheers guys, & thanx for all the suggestions, I'm using the serif photoplus suggested by Nick205, seems to do the job & not too hard to get my head around, quite powerful if anyone finds themselves looking for similar!

does gimp handle raw images ?

Found this on Google re Gimp

Working with RAW Files in GIMP
You can’t work with RAW files in GIMP, though. That’s not a GIMP quirk, it’s a RAW quirk. In order to work with your images, you’ll need a RAW converter to change them from a RAW format to something that GIMP can read, like TIFF or JPG. In addition to converting RAW files, RAW convertor programs usually have some editing capabilities that allow you to make those white balance, and exposure changes and save them as a sidecar file. Once you export the RAW file to JPG or TIFF, those settings are permanently applied to the file, and when you open the photo in GIMP it will recognize the image just like any other JPG or TIFF.

The basic Serif starter package doesn't but youcan defo upgrade to one that does - hope this helps - all this stuff is way beyond what I'm trying to do!