Creating an Impasto Painting Photo Effect - A Mini Tutorial

[Rik]

Now that is a really good one Rik, did you use the extra settings in V3.25. for this image?

Stygg

I did as Gary suggested in the first place - I played and adjusted the settings in V3.25, until I got the look I wanted, with not too much detail.

Then, I did something different to what Gary suggested (I hope he doesn't kick me for it!)
I didn't make a bitmap copy.

I applied the Fine Touch and the Emboss to the same image.
That way, I got the depth I was looking for as well.

[stygg2003]

Don't think Gary will kick you for it Rik seeing how the image turned out, brilliant and a cool tip as well

Stygg

[gwpriester]

Bend over Rick. Just kidding. The only reason for creating a bitmap copy is speed. But you may be more leisurely than I am.

[browj2]

Gary P, thanks for the tutorial.

I'm using DPX9 32 bit as I still can't reinstall X10, and the 64 bit X9 does not have the Emboss tool (nor many others). I had trouble with the 300dpi bitmap copy. When I tried to open Emboss, it would crash, out of memory I believe (I have 16GB). The solution was to just leave the image at 96dpi.

I noticed that the image rendered in Xara was quite different from the Fine Touch preview. The photo is as shot. Here is an example:

Fine Touch preview image:



After rendering in Xara :



Embossed still look ok, but I played with the parameters to push the raised parts. Zooming in shows the raised parts quite well and the leaves show smoothing and the raised effect:



Here is another example and it is fairly close to what I was looking for. I need to do some touchup on the colours first, there should be some green on the foothills:



These are likely not the best photos to use as examples, but I want to see how they would turn out.

I also noticed an anomaly with Emboss in X9. A couple of the parameters, Depth and Smooth end up showing 1 and 0, respectively, even though the slider is completely to the right. The correct values are 100 each. See below:



A final comment, depending on the type of image, reducing significantly the Smooth parameter creates an interesting effect.

Thanks,
John

[gwpriester]

Good observations John.

[Bob Rivers]

I installed the plugin but when I click on the live effect tool there's no dropdown box. The only thing that happens is an "e" is out beside the cursor (Not sure what that's about)

Bob
XARA P&G 10

[Rik]

Hi Bob.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'there's no dropdown box'?

Are you sure that you have the photo (the picture you're trying to change) selected?

[Rik]

Couldn't resist another go at it.

So, here are 2 friends, out for a walk.

[gwpriester]

Bob - When you select the FX Tool, there is a drop down on the top left of the window that reads New... Click the New... then scroll down to Redfield or Stylize > Emboss.

[Bob Rivers]

Well Duh.
I am living proof "Rivers" don't always run deep"

thanks
bob