How Could I Make These Photoshop Distortions in PI?

**Oracle of Wuffing** · 02 June 2004, 06:01 PM

I've been looking around for a while, and I'm trying to figure out how to create wave and polar coordinate distortions, which are evidently some things that PhotoShop can do. You can see what I'm talking about here.

I fully understand if there isn't any possible way that PhotoImpact can do these. Although, it would be very nice if there's a way to make these.

Oh, and if there's a way to do this on PIXL, please tell me. I haven't yet upgraded from PI8, and that would be reason enough for me to do so.

Any suggestions?

**Oracle of Wuffing** · 02 June 2004, 06:01 PM

I've been looking around for a while, and I'm trying to figure out how to create wave and polar coordinate distortions, which are evidently some things that PhotoShop can do. You can see what I'm talking about here.

I fully understand if there isn't any possible way that PhotoImpact can do these. Although, it would be very nice if there's a way to make these.

Oh, and if there's a way to do this on PIXL, please tell me. I haven't yet upgraded from PI8, and that would be reason enough for me to do so.

Any suggestions?

**Grafixman** · 03 June 2004, 08:50 AM

You could try getting the following free plugins: Cloud 2.2, Pole Transform 2.1 from the site below:

http://www.geocities.com/murakuma/mmplugins.html

Experiment with the various settings. I'm not saying you could get the same result, though. For one thing, PI doesn't have Photoshop's wave generator. So you'd probably have to use the shear distort several times to bend the lines into wavy curves. You'd have to make it up as you go. Maybe you don't even have to start with clouds... the main thing you're going for is several layers of light colored curving lines with black backgrounds stacked on top of one another with the blend modes set to inverse multiply, then colorize the final result... You have to read between the lines, to visualize what's happening, then use what tools you have available. Maybe I'll give it a go when I have some free time to play.

**Oracle of Wuffing** · 03 June 2004, 08:55 AM

Thanks, Grafixman. I'll go try those plugins now. If you would re-visit that topic I posted, I've already posted what I made without using the plugins. You know, just in case you want a chuckle.

Actually, on the topic of not using clouds, I've been using PI's built-in Smoke Particle Effect. Not that it matters.

**Grafixman** · 03 June 2004, 09:04 AM

Nice, but using grids is the hard way and produces pixellated results. Shear is smoother.
BTW did you check out another tutorial on the same site?Here. It used a black to white gradient tool set to difference and overlayed on top of one another at various angles and distances to get the first image. Might be worth a try. Then you'd duplicate, shear or flip, again and again, with the object layers set to inverse multiply. Flatten the final image then colorize. I'm just visualizing this, so I'm not sure if it'll work. Will have to try this later.

**Oracle of Wuffing** · 03 June 2004, 09:49 AM

Yes, I just found out about the pixellated results. I blurred the image a bit, and it became a bit less pixellated.

http://losthoaxes.digibase.ca/extra/.../piwaves02.png

That's what I came up with for my pre-shear phase. I used a SineDots plugin that a friend gave to me when he gave me PhotoImpact, though.

http://losthoaxes.digibase.ca/extra/...adientwave.png

There's my attempt at the other tutorial you pointed out. Not too shabby.

**Grafixman** · 03 June 2004, 09:58 AM

Five minute quickie:

http://home.pchome.com.tw/art/grafixman/swirls.jpg

No clouds, no rectangular to polar, no plugins. Use the linear gradient tool with blend mode to difference and go crazy with it. Convert to object, shear, flip or whatever. Object layer blend mode to inverse multiply. Adjust levels to define light and dark areas better (move the leftmost triangle to the right while previewing the result.) Stack variations on top of one another. Merge all. Colorize with the Hue and Sat.