I am a huge fan of your web site and have learned most everything I know about Photoshop (in my case, PSE 2.0) through your threads, tutorials, & links.

For a hobby, I make scroll saw portraits cut out of wood based on digital photos I have taken of friends, family, wildlife, etc (great gifts for relatives). The advice I seek is "how can I improve on making patterns in photoshop."

Ideally, a pattern is a clean, monochrome black & white, line-art representation of an image which is adhered to lumber and then cut out with a scroll saw.

More often than not, I design a pattern based on only the highlights of an image, perform a CDB (short for Color Dodge Blur, not Charlie Daniels Band) on an inverted duplicate layer, merge those layers, than multiply blend several copies until my pattern is clean (and detailed enough) to change to monochrome (black & white) most often using a gradient map adjustment layer. But, I've also made patterns hundreds of other ways as well.

Photocopy, threshold, and levels adjustments more often than not leave lots of orphaned pixels floating around and not much intricate detail (and lots of clean-up, man, I hate clean-up)!

Attached a sample of the procedure from original photo, to completed pattern, to finished portrait (my kids and their mom at a school event) to illustrate what I try to achieve, and would love some monochrome pattern making advice.

No more lurking for me... (though your site has helped me tremendously the last four years) does anybody have any advice for a woodworking hobbyist?

Thank you all,

Charlie Wahlquist

Nice work, Charlie. Welcome in, at last.
I've long been planning to do some marquetry using digitally-treated photos - still planning though!
Photocopy, threshold, and levels adjustments more often than not leave lots of orphaned pixels floating around and not much intricate detail (and lots of clean-up, man, I hate clean-up)!
In the "hundreds" of other ways have you tried the Anisotropic filter? I find that multiplying this with the normal outlines, besides cleaning up floating pixels also gives a nice effect.

Rô

...and your complement. A few weeks ago I saw a technique in here somewhere which utilized the diffuse-anisotropic filter. Works like a charm too, I have been using it regularly since then (along with several byRô actions).

After the inverted duplicate layer, color dodge gaussian blur (9-15px), and the layers in multiply blend mode, I merge visible, diffuse anisotropic, then mess with the gradient map sliders (Blk usually ends up around 92, White 93).

I think I saw the anisotropic diffuse in a Danny Raphael tutorial link for edges, outlines, sketch effect techniques. Still need to do tons of clean-up on the pattern even after all that. Instead of the color dodge gaussian blur, I've tried the High Pass filter, linear light blend mode over solid white as well.

Nothing I've tried gives me consistent results (like duh, every photo is different! :classic: ) Do you have any other techniques I could try and what do you mean when you say normal outlines?

Charlie

Although I'm sure this is one of many ways, I found this fairly quick to do (took only a few moments). Of course cleaning is still necessary, however, the amount of detail is easily adjusted for various photos.

Duplicated
Enlarged to 150 PPI
Gaussian blur 2.8 (to lessen detail when running Sketchmaster)
Ran Sketchmaster: checked lines, width -15, clean -15 and detail +45
Photocopy: detail 9, darkness 8
Inverted.

Thanks LQQKER. Haven't experienced "SketchMaster," is that a plug-in? Looks like it could be pretty flexible. Can you tell me more about it when you have a chance?

Thanks,

Charlie

Hi Charlie,

you can find all you need to know about Sketchmaster at this site: http://www.redfieldplugins.com/

Hi , What a great creative idea. Do you do color? Meaning can you use a color photo instead of black and white line art?

I would like to try this with pictures of my granschildren , but wondered if colored pencil effect or just using the color photo itself would work. Ihave so many wonderful prints of them. Neb

Hi Nebgranny,

I don't know if I explained my process very well.

What you see in the finished portrait is in fact a piece of wood with lots of holes in it. All black from my original pattern is cut out from the piece of wood with a saw and removed.

I place the wood over a backerboard which is lined with black felt or sable, frame the assembly, and that's it. The black you see in the finished portrait is the fabric on the backerboard (not paper).

So, no. I don't think color would be a good idea.

This may not be what you want but it's an action I use a lot from Jaime Romo, Pencil Art Work.

Cheers
Dave

You know Duv, I've had that action for two months and never bothered playing with it until today. Certainly does give clean results. I like the flexibility of Jaime's Pencil Art Work #2. Thank you for bringing the actions to my attention. Can't wait to fool with 'em some more.

Most of the time I spend, is involved in just getting a photo in shape for running an action like Jaime's. I don't know exactly why... but, the attached photo of Dave Matthews (musician) was perfect for a scroll saw pattern - wish all of them were that easy (took me less than a minute with no actions at all). Duplicate layer, invert, color dodge blur 15px, gradient map to b & w - followed by a tiny amount of clean-up.

I noticed the histogram is peaked high at both ends with midtones increasing gradually toward the right side. For my hobby, that is a perfect photo (should look cool cut out of some maple or baltic birch).

Charles, I hope you get some successes working around and within Jaime's action. I did do a Z curve to simplify. Excellent bare bones of D M Band. We see and hear him a lot up here and really like his music.

Cheers
Dave

Great show - saw DMB the last time they were in Mpls, he was also on the "Today" show last Tuesday a.m. (dude's fingers never stop)!

Hey Dave - what do you mean by "a Z curve to simplify? (asks the ignorant woodworker)! Using curves, make a shape resembling a Z?

Sorry, just found your thread in "bringing out the b & W." Got it.