TOPIC:

I have been kicking around what color(s) to paint my KZ1000E1 (ST) project bike. I am fond of red. I have had about 3 zillion red bikes as a result. The missus suggested royal blue (not my favorite color) and I though about a dark metallic green as well. Problem is, I haven't a good eye for such things and would like to see it before spending money on a REAL paint job (non-Krylon). Does anyone know of a good computer program that will allow you to easily morph in different colors and the colors have a metallic look rather than a flat/ugly tone? I can use MSPaint (with some difficulty now to turn a picture of a red bike into a picture of a green bike but the green will be a crayon shade and not the metallic hunter green I was thinking about... Seems to me that ANYONE who built a program to dress up a bike in different colors and perhaps with different options would be able to sell it. Check out the web site for the Victory bikes... that web site allows you to change colors and accessories...

Photoshop... I wouldn't say it's easy though Post a picture of your bike and I'll give it a shot.

Post edited by: dutchz, at: 2006/02/01 10:15

George-

Nada on morphing but you can get good photo manipulation program for free in the form of GIMP.

www.gimp.org/windows/

Most anything you can do with photoshop you can do with the GIMP.

I like John Deere green and yellow. Nice combo, familiar to farmers, not common on bikes, consider JD green as homage to kwaker green, yellow component makes it easier to see on the road and we all know safety is important.

-Duck

George,
Grabbed a random shaftie pic off the net. Not the best quality but I messed around with it a bit. Here ya go...

green


Post edited by: dutchz, at: 2006/02/01 12:39

red

blue

Man that green just looks right on that bike. I will have to see it on your bike though since all bikes are different.

dutchz, when you change the colour, how do you manage to maintain the three dimensional look/shadowing of the original picture. whenever i use MS paint or photoshop, the results look real flat and phony.

dutchz, REPEAT of last person's question... how the heck did you do that? UNBELIEVEABLE! You kept the shading and made the paint schemes look real!

I am also going to repaint my already painted front fender... it won't be chrome if you don't mind redoing those images and sending to me! This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

MANY THANK!

BTW: That essentially will be what my bike looks like. I am keeping the ST rear plastic outer fender (below ducktail) and the engine will likely be all black as I am taking the cases and case covers to get them black semi-wrinkle finished at the powdercoater. The wheels and small bits should already be done. Did the wheels in gloss black with the outer edge bare aluminum then the whole thing was clearcoated in powder. The front fender will be painted to match as the front fender on the bike pictured looks like a KZ900 and not ST. The seat is also a stock seat that is flat and not LTD style. The headlight ears, brake pedal and kick starter, and cover for starter will also all be gloss black (all powdercoated). Here is the bike where I found it in its "barn" state bwhahaha You can see that the front fender and seat are quite a bit different.

Post edited by: wiredgeorge, at: 2006/02/01 14:05

If you wonder about using MSPaint vs Paintshop... hehe

George, cheers. I have to go to work now but I'll see if I can do the fender later.

As to your questions: You don't actually paint OVER the parts you want to change. You select them, and change their color. I basically traced the contours for the tank with the lasso tool, copied the selection into a new layer and then you adjust the color for just that layer using "hue saturation" and that's that. I'm sure there's better ways using masks and so on but I haven't quite mastered that