Tacoma Porch Stairs
My friend Eric has a house in Tacoma, a Sears kit home shipped in by rail in 1920. We spend a lot of time there playing darts and grilling meats. Last week we pressure washed his side entry porch and he was wondering what color to paint it.
Did we use AI to help us visualize colors? Did we tell the AI what kind of vibe to go for, what emotions to evoke, what neighboring architectural features the color could tie into? Shit no man, I pulled the photo into Mojave Paint and did it by hand. Because knobs you can twiddle are way more direct than telling the AI "no, give me slightly darker shade of red please. Wait, no, go back the other way a little." Good grief.
This shape is angular so it was easy to get a selection on it with the poly lasso tool. Then I subtracted out the handrails with Quickmask. Once I had a selection I stashed that as an alpha channel so I wouldn't lose it, and made 3 "Solid Color" adjustment layers, each with their own color but sharing the same layer mask. Playing with the knobs a little, Overlay blend mode at 70% opacity was looking pretty good. (Never you mind that "fx" icon in the layer panel, more on that soon…)
The end result was three color options: burgundy red, grass green, and Volvo 122 blue. What's your favorite?
And in case you're wondering, the steak we made that day turned out awesome. Done-ness determined by poking it not by using a meat thermometer, because you can't always trust technology.
