March in the XaraXone

[Su Lawrence]

Another fab issue (I do seem to be using the word fab a lot nowadays it's getting a little worrying!)

Gary - brilliant tutorial as usual, always learn something new from them or new and interesting ways of doing things ... thanks.

Tony - Very clever stuff ... haven't used the mould tool a lot up till now but with your great tuts & tips I will.

Steve - OMG are you sure you are 16 years old and not a 40 year old graphic artist in disguise?!

Amazing images Steve, so now I'm afraid I'm going to have to hate you ... na only kidding ... because when I look at some of the stuff I did at 16 - even 18 years of age I really shudder at some of it.

Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

I'm running out of superlatives now so I'll stop here.

Su

[gwpriester]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Amazing images Steve, so now I'm afraid I'm going to have to hate you ... na only kidding ... because when I look at some of the stuff I did at 16 - even 18 years of age I really shudder at some of it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My thoughts exactly, Su.

Gary

Gary Priester

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XaraXone

[Old Dog]

Wonderful tut! I completed it last night and it came out great. It also came at a perfect time as I was working on something of my own on very similar lines, which brings up a question. I've been working on an image real close to the sphere in your tut only I wasn't using circles as the holes in the see through portion. My problem came when I tried to get the same image to appear through the holes to represent the inside of the back of the sphere. I just can't get the concave shape needed for the inside of a hollow sphere. Any ideas? Anyway, thanks again for a great tut. Also, how about talking young Steve into an indepth guest tutorial on something like his image of the Ninja motorcycle. I'd really like to learn how he gets his shapes so smooth and accurate. I just haven't been able to achieve the same on my own. I can't get the exact shapes I want when using the shape editor and when using the freehand tool it never comes out as perfectly shaped as I think is needed for this type of illustration work. Is it just practice or are there tricks I haven't learned yet?

Steve, you work is simply teriffic! The bike, jet ski, and the staircase are my favorites, but they all are equally as interesting. They're all beautifully done. Your eye for light and shadow is amazing.

and finally, Tony, thanks for part two. I'm working hard on mastering these two tuts. You have been so very helpful to me personally via email I can't thank you enough. I'm just an Old Dog trying to learn new tricks, and it's a slow process, but with your help it is coming along. Thanks again.

Jack

[jens g.r. benthien]

I've installed Sean's plug-ins and applied them to some bitmaps: the result is somewhat blocky - will this be solved with the registered versions???

jens

jens g.r. benthien
designer
http://jens.highspeedweb.net

----------//--
If you don't know how to dream you'll never be a designer.
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[gwpriester]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> I've installed Sean's plug-ins and applied them to some bitmaps: the result is somewhat blocky - will this be solved with the registered versions??? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Jay

Not that I know of. When you say blocky, in what way?

You might try applying the filters to a higher resolution bitmap. The results will be better.

Gary

Gary Priester

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XaraXone

[gwpriester]

Jay

Here is an example of what I was referring to in my previous post.

I converted this vector image to bitmap at 96dpi (Xara's default resolution) and then at 300dpi. The result is a higher resolution produces a cleaner image.

Gary

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XaraXone

[Sean Sedwards]

Gary's graphic says it all, but I think a few words of explanation will be helpful.

The spherical mould filter works by stretching a bitmap around a sphere. Visually, the centre is enlarged by 57% (i.e. multiplied by 1.57) and the edges are compressed to (almost) 0. Any jaggies in the central region will be magnified by up to 57% and may look even worse because of the circular distortion. Continuous tone photographs will be less affected but text and graphics should probably be oversampled by a minimum of 57% to maintain quality in the central region. Graphical images which have not been anti-aliased may need greater oversampling because of their inherent 'jagginess'.

Note that if you're going to increase the dpi of the bitmap by 57% or more on the page (i.e. by reducing its size or increasing the dpi of a fill), there's no need to oversample the bitmap.

Regards - Sean

[jens g.r. benthien]

check out the results in the attached file. It's a hi-res jpeg, packed into a zip file.

I think the bugs are clearly visible compared to KPT filters.

jens

jens g.r. benthien
designer
http://jens.highspeedweb.net

----------//--
If you don't know how to dream you'll never be a designer.
----------//--

[gwpriester]

And how much did you pay for Sean's Filters?

Gary

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XaraXone

[jens g.r. benthien]

Gary,

that's not the point. If a tool doesn't perform as intended, even a free version is too expensive. Think about it this way: I'm always in the game to **pay** for my apps, though I have access to pirated software (unfair biz though).

I would pay for Sean's plug-ins - if they would be bug free. You might ask 'why' - the answer is simple: faster access than to the KPT stuff, and KPT doesn't have an emboss filter.

jens

jens g.r. benthien
designer
http://jens.highspeedweb.net

----------//--
If you don't know how to dream you'll never be a designer.
----------//--