Photorealisitc clouds from...photos!

No, I don't mind, Stygg. I post things so people can examine, learn, and improvise.

Clearly, there's a lot of ways to make interesting clouds in skies, eh?

What I'd love to see in a future version of Xara (and yes, I've asked for it in private and on "Dear Xara") is more sophistication in making Custom Strokes. Although if you're careful, you can separate a photo of a cloud out of a photo's background and define it as a brush in Xara, the custom brushes are more or less "scatter brushes" similar to the Image Hose in Corel Painter. Microsoft has given up trying to sell Expression Designer and you can get it for free online now; they bastardized a wonderful patented technology that Creature House originally came up with, and that was to make strokes from vector and bitmap elements (like Xara can), but you could choose how to repeat or not repeat a stroke, scale it, stretch it, and the short of it here, is that you can do stuff like this in Expression.

Attachment 95085

I think this is an example of an expression of a cloudy sky that doesn't "suggest" but instead definitively "depicts". The difference between mumbling and speaking, if you will. And I'd like it in Xara.

My Best,

Gary

Now that would be really good to be able to make clouds like those in Xara, instead of using Fractals, thanks for that.

Stygg

Okay, this is me going O/T:

You could use a photo of a cloud in a composition, by using Xara or an image editor such as Photoshop or (the free) Artweaver to isolate one cloud in a photo you take, and then make the background color black and the foreground white, a greyscale image so to speak.

Then make the image Screen mode transparency. I've included an example here in this XAR file, and here's a thumbnail:

Attachment 95088

I've used the image twice in the Xara file. You could rotate it, use the Contone feature to tint it, just use the image as you'd use any shape you draw ing Xara, right?

My Best,

Gary

Absolutely fabulous Gary, clouds to go, the possibilities are endless :D I just could'nt resist a fiddle :D

Stygg

That is freakin' brilliant, Stephen!

Did you alter the Contone values?

Okay, here is the little challenge for today. I'm attaching two photos of clouds, the center ones are well-defined.

Can you separate them out, convert them to greyscale reversed, and then use them in a similar sky scene?

If so, then you can now truly "Do it yourself" with this very small trick.

Attachment 95092
-g

I've just downloaded your challenge Gary so I will have a look today:eek: Yes all I did in my image was alter the contone values, gave the background a deeper blue and added the star field. Not confident about seperating a cloud as you did in your clouds to go image though.

Stygg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gare

Okay, this is me going O/T:

You could use a photo of a cloud in a composition, by using Xara or an image editor such as Photoshop or (the free) Artweaver to isolate one cloud in a photo you take, and then make the background color black and the foreground white, a greyscale image so to speak.

Then make the image Screen mode transparency. I've included an example here in this XAR file, and here's a thumbnail:

Attachment 95088

I've used the image twice in the Xara file. You could rotate it, use the Contone feature to tint it, just use the image as you'd use any shape you draw ing Xara, right?

My Best,

Gary

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Hi Gary.
I've read the thread as carefully as possible and hope that I haven't missed something, when I ask my questions.

The part where you say 'isolate one cloud in a photo', is there a way other than taking the Shape Tool or the Freehand Tool to cut the cloud?

The next thing I don't understand is that the cloud is likely to be on a background that changes from being dark at the top part of the cloud, and lighter at the bottom part.
If I did convert this colour photo into black and white, then I am likely to end up with a good black at the top and grey at the bottom.
If I then use the appropriate transparency, then I don't get the desired result.

Looking at your 'Clouds to go' file, you've managed to grab this cloud with every little fine part at the edges.
I feel like screaming, "How did you do this?"

I've never really tried to do any of this before.
So, at least for me, some guidance would be appreciated.

Hey, Stygg and Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone—

I'd mentioned in my previous post that you could use Xara or an image editor to do the separation work. I used Photoshop (I had it open, it's not a complex editing step) and that's probably why my edgework looks magical or whatever. However, this can indeed be done with our favourite vector drawing program, trust it.

It's easier for me to just post this technique as a tute in steps, okay?

Attachment 95100


I wish this got me off the hook for this month's video tutorial. :(

-g

I was just about to seperate the cloud Jpg when you posted the mini tut.!!;)) Cheers for that Gary, I had tried everything to seperate them but was getting no where fast. It was ok for me to alter the contone values in the clouds to go but seperation was another thing. I will give it a go tomorrow. I've been invited out for a drink tonight by a few Irish friends of mine, God help my head tomorrow :D Happy St. Patrick's Day to you and everyone.

Stygg

It's a Micro-tutorial, not a mini-tutorial Stygg.

You're welcome, and worry about your liver, not your head.

Your head will always be fine.

-g

Thanks a bunch for the micro tut, Gary.

There's no way I would have known how to do that.

I'm glad it served you well, Rik.

I'm surprised that this is such a mystery uncovered!

No one works with image editors? It's essentially the same deal using Xara.

There's a whole passel of bitmap operations you can do. I think you've just prompted me to write several months of video tutorials!

-g

Gare, Thank your for "Clouds to Go" tutorial.

I need help on this one. I was good up to and including step 5. Then in step 6 I got lost. It seems that your black area is transparent but mine is not. Not sure what I am doing wrong. I am copying True color + Alpa.

What am I doing wrong? Thank You,

I left part of step 6 out, the document has now been revised if you want to go back and download it, VERY sorry!

Here's my notes on a copy of your work, beanpole, to make the tutorial work.

Apologies all around,

Gary

Thanks Gare! That worked perfectly. :)

Thanks for micro tut. Gary and the update and my head and liver are fine! :D

Stygg.

Gary,

Thank you for the micro tutorial. What an incredible tool. I went into some of my photographs and was able to also extract a moon and, by using darken instead of bleach I was able to extract a picture of geese flying in formation.

I will show a sample here. Note: I didn't create a sky, I just put these things on a plain blue background so they would show up.

Wow! Thanks Again. :D


Attachment 95133

Note: The first picture I attached (thumbnail) had a fuzzy moon, but I cleaned it up a bit.

Hi guys looks like you have been having fun! I gave the clouds to go a whirl. Gary I'd love to see some more little tricks like this one.

Thanks Gary for the micro. I am going to see if I can create a picture using the same method, not to make clouds but to generate fog. If I can make it work well it should open up the opportunity of creating some really atmospheric images...
So thanks once again
Tabian

Nice clouds Francis, Gary in an earlier post said he was surprised that no one was aware of this neat little trick and might make some vids. on other surprises ( bitmap editing in Xara) :D

Stygg

Yes. I think I will continue documenting the bitmap side of Xara for a few months, on and off, because there's neat stuff in there—as you can see with this Bleach mode example in combination with the Levels command.

The real "trick" to this clouds thing lies in the Bleach type transparency. Anyone who has a passing familiarity with Photoshop understands that Bleach Transparency type is also called Screen blending mode and it's actually a math calculation. When you use Bleach transparency, all the colors in the bitmaps that are lighter than the background tend to go toward light color or pure white. All colors that are darker than the background become invisible. The result of this operation visually is always a lighter color than you begin with.

And that is why if you use Levels to make the blue sky around my cloud pictures absolutely black, when you then put it into Bleach mode, the sky becomes invisible.

Get it?

This is a rich, fertile area of study in Xara, and really only the tip of an iceberg.

We'll do some more, right?

-g

YES please! :D

Stygg

I wanted to do something using your cloud technique and the technique I am workiing on for making planets. This may not be very good but at the moment it's the best I have to offer. All the manipulation was done using XDPX. There is much to learn here Gare. Keep up the good work.

Attachment 95156

Lately I have a real bug for doing planets.

Gorgeous, Larry!

Okay, just to keep this thing going with imported bitmaps and Transparency types, I have a "chaos generator" program, whose product, based on a lot of mash-up math and some user definitions for position and color, tends to yield some "deep space" nebula-like images. With transparent backgrounds. Here's four examples, attached in a Xara file, and I put a sphere shape in each to prime your Star Wars ingenuity!

Attachment 95162

No grades, not much of anything from yours truly until I get the March edition out! Look for Frances' superb tutorial in the next 24 hours.

I'm sure one of your people will build a spacecraft for one of the scenes!

-g

I went abstract :) I experimented with layering spheres and two of the galactic images and different contone colours and transparency modes until I came up with a composition I liked.

That's wonderful, Frances, and once again I've pushed the focus of this thread off-topic, haven't I?

In case anyone is interested, the name of the program I used to generate these "fractal flames" is Apophysis, it's open source and free. I'd love to say it's therapeutic like making seamless textures in Filter Forge, but it's not. It's actually wicked hard to get interesting images on your own and loading random samples will get you where you want to go, instead of trying to understand fractals and the underlying Chaos Theory.

My Best,

Gary