Thursday, October 15, 2009

More Play with Effects


I blame Beth Wheeler for the way I spent the morning. Beth is introducing the art quilt world to the wonders of displacement maps in programs such as Photoshop & Corel Paint Shop Pro. I had my program open to print out some reference pictures for the next challenge from June (as you can see above) so I thought I'd see if PSP had this feature. I didn't spot it so I went to the help index, and sure enough, there were instructions for using this effect. I returned to the drop down effect menu and it indeed was there - I don't know how I missed it before. I tried it out on one of the pictures open on my screen, and...oh my. Curse you Beth! As if I don't spend enough time already playing with the more obvious effects at my disposal! Oh, this is really cool! I closed all the jpgs except June's painting (at the top of the paper in the upper center above) and started to play.


As you can imagine, the variations are many (you can choose from program maps or your own photos), but I particularly like the "puddle drops" displacement on this painting. This one is stretched across the painting.


And this one is tiled across it.


As long as I was there (famous last words), I tried to remember which effect I'd used in the past to distill the photo down to blocks of color. Mosaic glass wasn't it but I thought this was stunning (click on this or any photo for a larger view).


While browsing the help index, I ran across information about using the "effects browser." The what?
Yet another option that was there all the time but that I'd failed to see. It's a way to preview en masse the effect of any and all manipulations to a photo. This struck me as a two-edged sword. It theoretically could speed the previewing process. On the other hand, I think making it easier only lured me to play longer.


But many of the results made me smile. This "bubbles and balls" effect reminds me of an Escher engraving.


How about looking out your blinds on a sunny morning to this view, compliments of the "sunrise blinds" effect?


The "curlicue" effect might give June ideas of how she could rework her painting. She's well known for continuing to work a painting if it doesn't feel right.


This "kaleidoscope" effect surprised me - they normally have a very crisp look but this one looks felted.

And finally, "twirls" going right and left, loose and tight.





3 comments:

June said...

holey, moley, Whatever have you done! To my work! I'll never see it the same again. And I can't wait to see what choice you make to work with -- and then I get to ask why.

This was really fun -- and saved me the trouble of doing this myself. Now I really do have some ideas. But I started a very traditional response for that queue, so twirls and whirls and bubblies will have to wait.

Cate Rose said...

Great Sheila, now you've got me hooked on this stuff!

The Idaho Beauty said...

Poor June! I meant to warn you that I was taking great liberties with your painting. I'm still entertaining the idea of dancing trees & skies, but I also like one of the photo manipulations a great deal. I may end up making two quilts, not one, again. Yes, this is great fun and you're welcome. VBG If nothing else, working with the photo manipulations can jump-start ideas beyond the predictable, which I've noted before I am prone to.

Connie, welcome to the club. I'd say this stuff was a great time waster if it didn't generate such cool images beyond what my tiny brain would conger. You literally could play all day on the computer and never get bored with this.