Thanks Gary, Frank and Stygg, both images were fun to do :)
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Thanks Gary, Frank and Stygg, both images were fun to do :)
In removing the bird from the birdbath I did not use any of the tools shown, I used the cat! it was quicker and easier :D Joking apart, I used a technique similar to Francis and although I'm still using PGD7, it worked ok. The headless image is a vid.snap then used the technique as shown, good bit of fun thanks to Gary :D Sorry about the chunk out of your shoulder Gary, that ruddy cat nibbles everything :D
Stygg.
Well, I was going to take my hat off to bow, but evidently I wasn't wearing one, stygg.
Both methods you propose are novel ways of removing the toucan.
Frances' technique, as she outlined earlier, uses the Magic Erase feature and cloning, which is fine as long as you own the current version of Xara; cloning goes back to version 6 (I think), but in any event, what's important when you're asked to retouch and image is to get it right, regardless of what tools you use.
If it looks right, then it is right.
I brought Fractal Plasma to the party because it can imitate the look of noise in analog photos and some of the noise you get with digital photos and high JPEG compression. The deal is: it's not enough to match the color in a photo, you need to also come real close to the surface noise, the grain in a photo to make invisible revisions.
Here's an example I did several years ago: one of the points on the paper crown was hidden in the photo, which was quite noisy because of a low light situation:
Attachment 91666
So use what you think will work, and part of the reason for the Xara Xone area on TalkGraphics is so we can all offer different methods for achieving an effect.
Thanks, stygg, thanks, Frances,
My Best,
Gary
Attachment 91671my trial to get something with the birdbath
I gave the bird some color and as background I used the image with effect paint filter
Hi Germaine—
Hey, you don't need the background!
Your composition is very clever and funny all by itself and you did very, very well with your selection edges!
My Best,
Gary
I think and this is just my opinion here but what works for one photo may not work for another and to my eyes at least the fractal plasma left a noticeable spot in the birdbath that draws the viewers attention to the area. Magic erase was brought in in version 7, the cloning technique has been possible since way back, in version 6 all they did was to automate the process. What bothered me about the results I was able to achieve with the fractal plasma technique was it was missing the reflectiveness of the rest of the water.
Agreed on a very important point: no two photos are alike.
Therefore, occasionally, the same tool will not produce the same results when the same image flaw is apparent.
I made the artistic call this month to use fractal plasma fill in the tutorial because I think it's underused, and also because there isn't a whole lot of disctinct, clean detail in the image from which to sample a clone area.
In general:
• When you have a flawed area and lots of near-identical area around the flawed are from which to sample, use the Clone/Magic Erase method (unless you're still using xtreme, in which case you can trim and feather areas to use as copies).
• When there is very little or no clean areas you can use to replace a flawed area, use a different photo as the source file if possible, or use a fractal fill in combination with transparency, and even try stacking transparent and fractal-fill layers in combination until you've synthesized a decent replacement area.
Frances, I suggest that the success of using a fractal fill to imitate a photograph area lies in both the photo and how you approach it. On the other hand, what you did with cloning worked, too, and I'd be a fool not to be open to other possibilities.
It's great when there's more than one solution to a problem!
Then we can argue over which one is best. :)
—g
i agree, but only when light angle, elevation and intensity make that possible, which so many people forget/ignore
i've never used fractal plasma for anything, at the end of the day in my opinion its a pointless bitmap tile fill
nature is random, it is the imperfections in something that make it look natural
So you're taking me up on arguing, Big Frank?
:)
I am pleased that there are some terminating fractal types in Xara, and I wish for more in future versions. There are at least 15 different sorts of fractal formulas, and they can be written as terminating or non-terminating. So Frank, a non-terminating fractal, which Xara doesn't currently offer, would satisfy the requirement for a fill type that looks "natural". Fractal math, by its very...erm, nature...shows branching, self-similarity.
I think this looks fairly "natural". I did this in Photoshop with a fractal generator and then cleaned up the basic render in Xara:
Attachment 91696
Frank, I agree that Xara's fractal features are pretty limited, but disagree that the Plasma is a "pointless bitmap fill". It's a good beginning to a complex fill; when you need a specific sort of noise, I can't think of a simpler way to generate it.
For the sake of this post not being a, "Yes, it is, no, it's not" discourse (which would indeed be pointless :)), I wrote this thing a while back while trying to explain what a "fractal" is, with respect to computer graphics:
What Is a Fractal?
Fractal geometry is based on mathematical equations, whose core is beyond the scope of a few human-understandable paragraphs! However, fractal geometry usually appears to have the following visual characteristics:
• Self-similarity Fractal designs branch with variations set by the mathematician writing the fractal math, but typically a fractal design repeats a basic structure within itself at smaller scales, branching from a main body in the design. This is why many fractals look like organic forms such as ferns, broccoli, and seashells—these designs in nature also obey fractal math.
• A recursive structure with irregularities As with self-similarity, fractals repeat, with variations, as they branch. If you’re familiar with Euclidean geometry, fractal math is too unpredictable when plotted to 2D space to be described in Euclidean geometric functions.
• Exist within a domain of 2D or 3D space Fractal math is used in several 3D programs to generate organic sculptures. KPT Frax4D, in fact, is an Adobe Standard plug-in that can generate fractal designs in 3D space. Fractals were once described by a mathematician using this analogy: if a square represents the number 2 and a cube represents the number 3, fractals live somewhere between these two integers.
What I try to do is encourage inventiveness with what we have in the program. At the same time, I'm always asking for more, and fractal geometry that can be set to repeat, or never repeat, and other types than the clouds and noise would be really nice. Here's only four of several I can use in Cinema 4D for quick, simple bump maps and stuff:
Attachment 91697
Frank, I just want to make sure you're not happy with the current offerings in the program and not the idea of fractal fills in general. Because I believe they're quite useful and I put 'em in my work all the time.
(Take a look at XenoDream, and what they do with fractal math in a 3D domain)
My Best,
Gary
i dont have the energy to reply
i know what fractals are but not as well as you
suffice to say that all of the examples you use are outside of xara, which was my point