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Thanks Mike - you beat me to it and probably did a better job too!  I do the same but use Path > Difference as I find it slightly easier to understand what’s going on if I accidentally try it with too many overlapping parts. 
 

Stuart - really pleased you’re getting there! 

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Personally, I would leave the textures in the windows, and just draw in some line. When in place, cut across the top and bottom, and then down the vertical centre line. You can then wrap the paper round the card (assuming you will be printing on to paper, to cover card). This will give neat sides to your windows.

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Thank you F2Andy,

Yes this is my normal approach to building card and paper buildings

However in this instance I am just learning how to use inkscape

In time I expect I will find what works for me 
Thanks for the suggestion though

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StuartM, to answer your question, there is a software package " that comes with a whole bunch of textures like brick and stone walls etc, and also a good selection of windows including their arches and sills that can be dragged and dropped into place on a textured background." The name is "Model builder" , https://evandesigns.com/products/model-builder , but it is mostly US oriented. I agree, a good way to go is to  scratchbuild usink Inkscape.

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  • 1 month later...

Well a few weeks have passed and I had to buy a new computer that had the grunt to handle Inkscape (a reconditioned Dell from Amazon with a 2.4ghz cpu, a 1TB hhd, plus 23" screen, mouse and keyboard all for £160 delivered)  and a new 5colour ink jet printer because I only had a B&W laser printer, but these are all worthwhile upgrades in their own right.

Then I watched a lot of "how to" videos by a chap called 'logos by Nick, working my way through his tutorials which is learning by doing, and now I'm still not an expert by any streach of the imagination, but,I can find and download different textures, import them into Inkscape and manipulate them enough to start making not perfect, but passable buildings

 

5.jpg

2.jpg

Edited by StuartM
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I meant to ask, does anyone have a solution to the RGB/CYMK problem
In that you can find the perfect texture on the screen, but print it out and the colours are radically different.
Having watched a few youtube video's explaining the whys and the wherefores and the possible workarounds, I just wondered if anyone cared to share their solutions

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22 hours ago, StuartM said:

I meant to ask, does anyone have a solution to the RGB/CYMK problem
In that you can find the perfect texture on the screen, but print it out and the colours are radically different.
Having watched a few youtube video's explaining the whys and the wherefores and the possible workarounds, I just wondered if anyone cared to share their solutions

Having worked in print since 1982 I feel somewhat qualified to answer your question. Sadly I doubt it's the answer you want. At one company I worked for we had a £14,000 proofer that was supposed to be a perfect match to what would be produced on the 4 colour offset lithography presses. It wasn't.

 

The colours that will be furthest away from the RGB when converted to CMYK will be dark or deep greens and browns. I am not sure whether you know but C stands for Cyan which is a fairly light blue, M is Magenta - almost pink and of course Y is Yellow - a quite acid shade and fairly light. Because each of these colours are light the only way of producing deep colours is to add in an amount of B - Black. This usually just makes the colour Muddy. 

 

I wish I could give a solution but as you have found it is a compromise. You can get programs such as Photoshop to approximate the conversion on screen for you but it will always be different as a screen uses light and the printer uses pigment.

 

Always convert the image on screen, in your photo editing software, to CMYK which should give a better approximation of the printers output. 

 

Also as mentioned in another thread there are Colour Profiles to consider and it is best to stick with one throughout the process (you may find one that your printer uses). You can buy Six Colour, colour printers that get closer to the true colours but even with a colour calibrated screen what you see on screen is never going to exactly match what prints out of any printer no matter how expensive. Another thing that can affect the perceived colour is the resolution of the screen and printer. Most, if not all, screens are lower resolution than the printer. Although what most people quote as the "dots per inch" on an inkjet or laser print are actually "lines per inch", it is only "halftone" pictures that are made up of dots (on low quality newspapers you could almost see the dots without a magnifier). This difference will also account for some of the colour variation.

 

Sorry to not be able to give you a more positive answer and a solution.

 

One thing I do, because I have Photoshop (other photo editing programs should have the same facility), is do a test print and tweak the colours to try and match what I want to get out of the printer. Your photo editing software should have what is known as a "colour picker" to show the CMYK values at any given point in an image. Not very scientific and it's trial and error, but will get you closer to an acceptable result. Be aware that laser printers will give different results from inkjet ones as well so try and stick to the same screen and printer throughout the whole process.

 

I wouldn't waste much money on fancy screens or calibration devices though. They may seem to get closer on some colours but will probably be further out on others.

 

Another thing to be aware of, and it's just happened on my screen, is if you have a 'blue light filter' that comes on after a certain time, that will massively affect your on-screen colours.

 

Simon

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I had a bit of a lightbulb moment tonight

I created a small utility building with a brick texture and then overlaid rectangles of darker or lighter colours on top and used the opacity and blend sliders to create different shades of brickwork.

This allows me to break up the uniform brick colour and also get the colour to print nearer to my chosen hue

The original colour and the blended version below which as you can see looks quite different

original.JPG

Blocked texture overlay.JPG

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It also successfully hides  the repeat pattern of the brickwork image.

 

A bit beyond the scope of Inkscape but with 3D packages like Blender you can use whats called PBR - Physically based rendering - to use bump maps of  the original image (Gimp or photoshop can produce these) and reprocess it so that features like shadows, highlights  and so on are added, giving  a remarkable 3D effect to the actual bricks. The demo bit I experimented with came out successfully enough that people run their fingernails down it convinced that the bricks are actually embossed.

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15 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

It also successfully hides  the repeat pattern of the brickwork image.

 

A bit beyond the scope of Inkscape but with 3D packages like Blender you can use whats called PBR - Physically based rendering - to use bump maps of  the original image (Gimp or photoshop can produce these) and reprocess it so that features like shadows, highlights  and so on are added, giving  a remarkable 3D effect to the actual bricks. The demo bit I experimented with came out successfully enough that people run their fingernails down it convinced that the bricks are actually embossed.

Sounds interesting, do you have any photos or links you could share

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