Another digital watercolour...

**Ross Macintosh** · 21 March 2006, 03:38 PM

Raji -- What a great idea it was to donate images to Veterans Affairs Canada! I'm sure the Veterans who've seen them enjoyed them as much as I did.

ZEBtoonz -- I look forward to seeing your beach house if and when you can post it.

Craig -- My thought was by drawing a few lines you can sometimes give some punch to reinforce only the edges needing reinforcement. Generally the problem with edge finding filters is they aren't selective enough -- they find all edges and not just the important ones. One way around that might be to apply Thredgeholder to a copy of your image that you've brightened considerably. (LittleInkPot's Xpose! could likely be used to brighten by poweringup the highlights). The edges that result can then be overlaid on the original with stained glass transparency.

Regards, Ross

**Craig1128** · 22 March 2006, 03:42 AM

Ross, thanks for the pointers... I'll continue to play... I will post one attempt, any further suggestions welcomed.

**ZEBtoonz** · 22 March 2006, 03:57 PM

Ross, here's my beach house.

**ZEBtoonz** · 23 March 2006, 01:20 PM

Here's an updated version. I added plants, adjusted the colors and gave it a ragged edge.

**Ross Macintosh** · 25 March 2006, 02:11 PM

Craig -- That train looks great. One thing I've noticed about filters and these techniques is they are very much influenced by the resolution you are working. For example it looks like your original tran pic was quite high resolution. As a result the watercolour is very detailed. If you wanted a looser look you couldhave started with a lower resolution bitmap copy of the train. --- just something to play with and explore.

ZEBtoonz -- I enjoy both images although I do find the vehicle detracts somewhat from the first. As illustrations I think they have quite a bit of charm.

Everyone -- Over at the SketchUp Forums I have a thread with a new series of digital watercolours - produced with Xara of course. You're invited to visit!

Regards, Ross

**Bob C.** · 25 March 2006, 05:15 PM

Wow great technique Ross, thanks for sharing it!

The self-portrait is amazing.

Bob C.

**Craig1128** · 25 March 2006, 07:59 PM

I went back and looked at your examples in this thread and noticed the difference... I thought maybe I needed to change the settings when I applied the plug-ins, but what you said makes perfect sense...I noticed this with plug-ins that 'draw' the photo, how much of a difference a higher quality photo is to a lower quality one. The train was a picture I took, so the resolution is straight from the camera... I'll have to try to reduce it first. Thanks bunches for all the feedback!