Lights and more...

**molucca** · 15 February 2006, 08:35 AM

Twidder,

You can always use blur effects to help an image. I did a little adjustment with Mystical Tint, Tone & Color. I haven't found anything that optimizes an image that well. I seem to lose the crispness.

You need to crop your images to remove the white space. You can use blur and sharpen with scans effectively.

Rich

**TwidderBird** · 15 February 2006, 03:04 PM

yes, I'm aware of the blur--this it what happened: using psp jpeg optimizer wizard--I was following the window in the wizard (of course). becuz of what I saw there I put in some extra sharpen. BUT, when I uploaded here that's when the overcompensation showed and it was too late. it's not the first time that what I see on my program and what uploads here it different.

I was rushing much to get these uploaded so it just didn't occur to me to crop. but that's exactly what I said to myself when I saw my post--

oh, I should have cropped the corner

nance

**molucca** · 15 February 2006, 04:07 PM

A map from a duck's foot. I'll add this to my orange series.

I need to edit my post at times. Mostly spelling. There is a limited time to do that. Probably can edit the images as well. After that editing can be performed by a moderator.

I especially have a problem with the Canon files since I don't get a thumb view in Explorer.

Rich

**TwidderBird** · 15 February 2006, 06:18 PM

I'll keep that in mind. thanks. and try to upload only if I have the time to fix something if needed.

colors and now shapes--ducks feet of all things! pretty neat feet I'd say; original shaping for sure. great creative thinking

(maps are quite versatile--but I'm trying to only work on one thread at a time. gotta back up and keep reviewing all the info on maps here. hey, where'd the first part of this thread go?)

I'm still working on drops, Rich. going to have to start keeping an idea list...

**molucca** · 15 February 2006, 08:12 PM

A folder of various maps I have been trying. It is a process of trying things to see what works. Rich

**TwidderBird** · 16 February 2006, 01:15 AM

I like your collection very much. I suppose peach07 is from a peach pit

a few that jumped out at me this moment are the mint colored GreenGI's, the cork, the RedLight, and the gb2.

is it possible for you to give me the RGB for the green and red (or CMYK--I think you work with that)? And what did you use for gb2 to get the stripes (let me guess--a zebra?..."laugh"). oh, and the 'buttonized' sun2 metallic appearance

...some of these would make good bowling balls

thankyou very much to whoever brought the whole thread back

nance

**molucca** · 16 February 2006, 01:28 AM

A spider web blowing in the wind, and green glass found on the beach. Rich

**molucca** · 16 February 2006, 01:37 AM

A sunset.

I made a hue shift for the red light. It was a yellow orange street lamp under a redwood tree. The tree is very large, and the light is on all the time. I did a couple more shifts to other colors. I have renamed the EGD files to fall in order of color. You could use the color probe in Xtreme to read the values. Draw an object and with the object selected, run the probe over the image.

You can read the images into XPal, and create a PAL of EPS file Xtreme can use. Pal files are text files, and you can read them in Note Pad and look at the RGB triplicates. The EPS file will load with a matrix of colored objects.

Rich

**molucca** · 16 February 2006, 12:39 PM

The metal and grid series. I drew rectangular object with lines in Xara, converted to lines to shapes and molded the drawing into a circle. Then just fill the drawing with an image and save to PNG/alpha. This map type is unique to Expression. Xara has very good tools for controlling the fills. I keep several basic drawing and mak maps as needed. I usually use the metallic series for the fills.

The transparent areas in the grid maps leave transparent areas when applied.

Rich

**molucca** · 16 February 2006, 12:47 PM

The fly and shell series. I deleted all of my earlier maps and rebuilt everything. This was a Xara effort to clip out a circle and add extra space in preparation for Gel shaping. Once the image is shaped, they are trimmed in Xara. The additional space is needed to apply the gel effect. The map application starts at the edge on the map graphic, and a transparent space would leave a transparent space between the path and the fill. You can design that in I as required.

The earlier maps were deleted because I didn't like the amount of highlight. I found how to control the gel effect and make the highlight better.

Rich