Pixel Art Rainbow

Before you begin, make sure that you have done the Tutorial " Pixel Art Tools In PhotoImpact " and knows all the setting, cause they are always the same and save them in your Easy Palette for a fast access and also the previous projects, they build up from previous one. Remember, no soft edge, none whatsoever.

First, if you have already a scene where you would like to add a rainbow, open it and using the setting on the left, draw an ellipse, the first ellipse will the the red one which is the first color of the rainbow, make it the size you would need for it. Once done, copy and paste to a new image, we will use it as our workspace. If you don't have an image yet, just open a canvas 200 x 150 pixels. Draw your ellipse to fit the canvas or just about.
	Ok, now while your red ellipse is still select, duplicate it, Once duplicate change the color to yellow. Using the transform tool make it fit inside the red ellipse. Don't worry if a pixel appear at the top or bottom of the ellipse or if some pixels are missing when you try to fit it inside, we will take care of it later. Remember to save your work often as you do this. I won't repeat this through the tutorial.
	You repeat the step above until you have done all the color of the rainbow. See example on the left. As you could see on the zoom image on the left, I have some one pixel showing on the red at the top and some missing pixel from the green on the left side. It may happen and may not, it all depends of the size we are working on and yours may be different. Not to worry, I'll show you in a moment how to fix it.
	Now, we are going to select all of our objects and merge it as a single object. By doing this, we do lose our path (vector), it is now an image object. So from now on, we will treat this image as a pixel one. While it is still select, we are going to erase half of our ellipse, which is the bottom part of it.
	Ok, now for fixing our rainbow. First I did paint the extra pixel at the top and paint directly on my object while it was still select. Now for the missing pixels. Since mine were green, I choose the same green color and paint the missing pixels in mode. If you have more than one color pixel missing you change the color accordingly to the missing ones. Once done, click out of mode, select all object and merge as single object. Cool, looks super, I bet yours do too.
	Let's push it a bit further, would be nice if we had a lovely transition from one color to the next color. Let's start with the red color going to the yellow color. We are going to choose two color between those two. First with your red color select as your first choice color, we are going to use Ulead color picker. At the example on the left here, we are going to move the little cursor until we get a strong orange, which means that we just did mix a little bit of yellow with our red. Look at the example below, you will see where I did paint the strong orange with the paint brush, at the bottom of the red rainbow stripe. Remember we use the paint brush pixel setting for this. And you paint it on the select object.
	For the second color, on the example on the left, I move the little cursor going toward the yellow, getting a very light orange. which means that I have mix a little bit of red color in my yellow color. Fun to be able to mix our color like that, and mix the amount of color we need in each one. Ok, Let's move on. The second color is paint at the top of the yellow rainbow stripe next to the strong orange one. You will repeat these two color procedure for each color of the rainbow.
	This is what it should like, your colors may vary from mine a bit but it's ok, as long as you get a nice transition from it.
	This is my rainbow at the actual view.
	Ok, here is my scene and it is all merge down. I'm going to show you and easy way on how to add it to your scene with the help of the transparency.
	Ok, let's copy and paste your rainbow over your scene. By clicking on your black arrow, pick tool, you are able to see at the top bar, the transparency and the soft edge. We are only going to use the transparency. With your rainbow select, set your transparency at 50. On the example on the left, I'm seeing my scene behind, so it is now easier for me to erase the parts of the rainbow I don't want in my scene, like I don't want it over my street light, but only behind it.
	Keeping the rainbow select, I choose the eraser tool and erase where the rainbow show over my objects that I want to have in from. Look at the example on the left.
	Don't forget the other side of the rainbow too, make it follow the scene, like here I have tree bushes. It will really look like it is behind them.
	Ok, now we are done with the eraser, let's click on the black arrow, the pick tool, and lets set our transparency at about 30, the reason for this, it will bring a bit of the sky color into your rainbow, since rainbow are some transparent prism, it will look more natural. Deselect all objects, and zoom out to the actual view.
	Hey Pretty cool, I like that, and my rainbow is behind all my scene objects onto the sky. This technique can only be apply to a background or inside an object, cause when saving an object as a gif format we can save a transparency on the edge of it. But on a background or inside an object like windows in on a house this is possible. Hope you have enjoy this one.
If you want some help or critic, please use the critics Icon and post as well a screen shot of a zoom, so I could see better your work and help you out. It won't be possible for me every time to download your work and open in PI to zoom on it. Thanks. Don't forget to show what you have done in the Pixels Art Workshop forum. at PhotoImpact International Board. If you are not a member, you just have to register, it is free. Don't forget to grab your award.