Auto paint color sampler program?

Lil Foot

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Does anyone know of a (free) program in which you can load a pic of a car and then change the paint color of the car to view what it would look like in other colors & paint schemes? Seems to me they were common a few years ago, but now I can't seem to find any.
Any help would be appreciated. Thinking about painting my golf cart (Lil Foot) when I get more time.
 

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Lil Foot

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1979 B7100DT Gear, Nissan Hanix N150-2 Excavator
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Wow, no one has any input?
That might be a first for one of my inquiries.:D
 

Lil Foot

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That's exactly the effect I'm looking for, but $699 is more than I wanted to spend to alter one photograph. They will also sell it for $10 a month, but no one will tell me what the minimum number of months would be.
I have been told that there are software programs for the IMac (my platform) that are low cost & will do what I want, but as yet I haven't found any. The search goes on.
 

lugbolt

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Local auto body guy offers that service to his customers.

Problem is, most of the time, it's not accurate.

Sun light and an LCD are totally different colors, thus affects the outcome.

He has run into this before and had to add a disclaimer to the site that it should be used for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied upon for actual results.

He doesn't do much of it anymore and that's probably a good thing. He can, however, load a known paint formula into his system, use photoshop to give you an idea of what it'll look like, but until it's sprayed and the sunlight hits it, it's just a guide to give you an idea. And of course, it's not free. There have been times when an owner wanted the color to be a little differently shaded than a known formula, but there was no formula for the custom color, so they had to mix something up-and it didn't come out quite like the owner wanted on a test panel. I've had this happen to me on my old F150 that I wanted a certain color. They had to custom mix to get it, and even then after the color was laid down on the truck, it was a little different. I was fine with it but it wasn't really what I wanted. Just the color mixing process was a 4 hour ordeal in my case. At today's labor rate of about $100/hr, it'd be $400 just to mix up a custom color....NOT counting the actual work in paint/prep.
 

Lil Foot

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1979 B7100DT Gear, Nissan Hanix N150-2 Excavator
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After a bunch of research, I downloaded this free photo editor. It appears to do exactly what I want. See the youtube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPhplMx9hV8
Only I can't get it to work. I suspect that you have to buy the "full featured" program to get this level of capability. I haven't had the time to try calling them yet.
 

Lil Foot

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1979 B7100DT Gear, Nissan Hanix N150-2 Excavator
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Peoria, AZ
As for accuracy, not a big concern. I'm just trying to see (broadly) what the cart would look like in various colors & schemes.
In the pic above, you can see that the main body is a sort of forest green, the cab is black, and the top is white. What would it look like all one color? Leave the top white? Cab and main body two different colors? How about that bright blue of the FJ Cruiser series? Bright yellow green like the new Camaros?
 

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Lil Foot

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1979 B7100DT Gear, Nissan Hanix N150-2 Excavator
May 19, 2011
7,520
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Peoria, AZ
Looks promising, I'll check it out. Thanks!
 

Russell King

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Way back I just use xerox copies of pictures of the car and colored them with map pencils to see what color and pattern combinations look like.

Make light black and white copies, so the black is fairly gray, trace the important lines in the copy and then copy light again. Repeat as required.

You will end up with a fairly good drawing to color.

The hardest part may be to find a copy machine that won’t make a crisp copy


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