The July Tutorial Discussion-Retouching Images

[Gare]

@Larry—

Well, me too: I asked Kate yesterday if there's an appropriate and free engineer I can talk to about adding or implementing displacement mapping as a Live Effect. Let's see if I make headway. If not, let's do a "Dear Xara", eh?

To demystify this displacement jazz: you need a source image and a target image. You could use Digital Anarchy's Backdrop Designer to make a source image but it's not free. But [url=http://www.texturemaker.com/download.php]GenTex is indeed free, but you'll have to click about a dozen times to finally arrive at a random texture that looks like wafting fabric.

What a filter should do is "move" pixels across their "canvas" according to the brightness values in the image. For example, wherever there is a brightness value of 128 to 255 (on a scale of 0-255), the target image's corresponding pixels should move up and to the right, the distance determined by the amount of brightness. Inversely, brightness values of 0 to 128 should reassign the target image's pixels down and to the left.

Here's a working example, step by step.



It's a visually beautiful effect. not something you'd need every day, but it would be nice to stay in Xara and have the feature to do this, eh?

My Best,

Gary

[angelize]

I agree!

[stygg2003]

Just tried the displacement map on the Union Jack, looks good but if, as you say, you increase the white level to much, you lose the effect.

Stygg

Sorry, didn't include the compare

[Gare]

Looks good, Stygg.

When we work with color, whether it's bitmap or vector fills, we work within a color system, a color space, it's called. Like any system that has a boundary, when we go outside of it, unwanted, unexpected things happen.

Fundamentally, it's a good idea to set the brightest point in a composition to about 90%, not 100%. Why? Because you might want to add highlights at some point in the future, and you can't not if your current whitest white is 100%. Similarly, if your darkest shade in a composition is 90%, then you can shade this region to 100%...but not if your darkest darks are already 100%.

[stygg2003]

Point taken Gary. I've just applied the displacement map on the Union Flag you posted, left the levels on the flag Png alone but altered the displacement map levels to 0-1.00-133 and the image looks fine, is this correct in applying the map this way? I apologize if I seem a bit slow on the uptake on this subject.

Stygg

[Gare]

I cannot advise you on exact values you should use, but the one rule that trumps all others in artwork is:

If it looks right, then it is right.

I was just trying to put out some basic logic about lighting in my previous post. IOW, it's not a good or wise idea to begin with a white shape if you know that later on you want to apply highlights to it.

Procedurally, yes, you adjust the displacement map—which we're actually using for shading the flag, not displacing it—and not the underlying art. The lights ned to be lighter and I think the darks need more ooomph, too, so you drag the Levels black point to the right and it's white point to the left until it looks "significant" instead of subtle and washed out.

-g

[angelize]

I have been playing around with using displacement photos in Xara and PSE 9. In Xara it's so much simpler to bring your photos in and use them for shading but I tried using the liquid color to pull light areas up and dark areas down and while it can be done it can get quite tedious.

Here is an attempt at using a photo for shading and the LC to displace by hand. A displacement filter for Xara would be useful especially if could work with vectors too like the mold tool does.

[Gare]

I'm not being a very good Moderator here, sorry!

We've gone way off-course, and although displacement belongs to the topic of image-editing, it's become clear to me that:

1. It's a topic of interest and
2. Xara doesn't really have a feature to automate it.

@Frances, I'd have to ask that if one owns Photoshop Elements, which has the Displace filter, why one would try to brute force a similar effect out of Xara using Liquid Color? It's close in some respects, but as my grand-daddy used to tell me as a child: "close" only counts in the game of horseshoes, and with hand grenades. (he was a troubled man...)

The plea I've brought to the Xara Group is to include such a filter in future versions. After experimenting for quite a while in version 8, a Xaraist would have to be mega-talented to reproduce a displacement effect manually using existing tools.

The result you show in post #133 is quite visually pleasing and interesting, but it doesn't have the detail that suggests fabric like PSE's Displace filter can produce, using a good source file of fabric (using GenTex or other source).

I think we've played this off-topic out.

I'll be back with some Color Select and Clone target images in the next few days, and please, ask questions if the video wasn't clear in any respect to the subject.

My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

Okay, here's a mini-challenge.

The attached image is not quite white, and not quite black in its darkest areas, so it can be selected and recolored fairly easily using this month's techniques.

Let's think about harmonious colours, though, as I've referred members to GenoPal.

How can you add color to this scene and make it m ore compelling, more harmonious and elegant?

Accuracy counts as much as your choice of palettes. Make it a better illustration than it is at present.



My Best,

Gary

[mwenz]

Haven't had a lot of time for playing with images. But I loved this one.

I liked the background and vase color already. So a quickie.

Take care, Mike