kaleidoscope

[jeaniesa]

Hi Danny! If I ever have a life again, I promise I'll be back on a regular basis. My past year has been way too busy and the near future doesn't look much better. I haven't had time for much photo-art and I really miss it! Until then, I try to check in from time to time, but whenever I think I've figure out how to balance my life, it shows me differently.

jaykita, another beautiful one! No need to bow to anyone! I find that photos with a shallow depth of field produce some of the most beautiful kaleidoscopes.

Janet, I'm sure your sister would love a kaleidoscope for scrapbooking! FYI, we've found that 8" kaleidoscopes (easily printed on a letter-size printer) work really well when placed on 12x12" cardstock because it leaves room for embellishments and journaling on the scrapbook page. (Of course, if you have a 13" printer, larger kaleidoscopes are great too. ) And I highly recommend using kaleidoscopes to make cards - I've made tons of them!

Thanks T Paul. We knew the kaleidoscopes would be popular among scrapbookers. What we didn't realize was that it's just as popular among quilters! (Printing the kaleidoscopes on fabric and including as a block in a quilt.) It's been great fun to see everything that people are creating with kaleidoscopes! (Some images attached.)

Jeanie

[Janet Petty]

OK, Jeanie, we want a tutorial in detail. Please Please Please. Those are amazing and very professional. I have so many possibilities for this marvelous creation of yours I can't begin to list them.

Once again as I submit my humble effort, I bow to the masters.

Janet

I found a funky site (http://www.good-tutorials.com/track/2789) with a really different kaleidoscope tutorial. Instead of using the colorize option the writer suggested at the bottom, I added a bit more contrast and a gradient layer. Weird huh?

Yes, those are Christmas lights in the first one.

[jeaniesa]

Are those Christmas lights Janet? Very cool!

I can do tutorials, but I have to warn you they won't come all at once b/c I'm scrambling to get ready for a tradeshow that we signed up for really late, so I'm way behind on everything that I have to do. Do you have a favorite that you want me to start with?

Jeanie

[T Paul]

For those of you interested, Jeanie has a web site you might want to check out. It also includes a section on kaleidoscopes, an idea gallery and a site to purchase the kaleidoscope software.

Custom Kaleidoscopes

Kaleidoscope Kreator

Idea Gallery

[ahutton]

The only high tech equipment I use for kaleidoscopes is Paint Shop Pro. They have a kaleidoscope filter. You can choose the number of "petals" and "orbits," ise ofsets, etc. One click and no coffee filters wasted.

You get different results when you mirror the image, too. I like to add other filters to photos before I do them, then deform the image with various other filters.

Below is one with 20 petals and one orbit, and the other is one with 8 on a mirrored image,

Amy

[jaykita]

Jeanie, THANKS A MILLION! You are so creative and do fabulous work. You've really sparked my imagination, wow there's so much i want to do! Thank you all, and Janet, T Paul, for the praise. You all are a great bunch, so creative, so encouraging, and so helpful too. T Paul, i highly appreciate the links to Jeanie's websites.
In case it has escaped your notice, for those who have Corel Painter 8, there's a great feature on creating kaleidoscopes. And very easy to use. Go to the bottom of the layers palette, depress the 2nd button where it says "Dynamic Plug-ins", you'll find - Kaleidoscope, among others.
Have fun!!

[jeaniesa]

Hey, no fair sneaking in an attachment to a post I've already read Janet! That's an interesting tutorial - I think your gradient layer is a good addition.

I wasn't kidding when I asked what you want a tutorial on. (Focus, I need focus! ) Do you want a tutorial just on some of the digital editing I do after I make the kaleidoscopes? Or do you want details of how I made the cards/scrapbook pages after I printed them out?

I should mention that links that T Paul mentioned are on two different sites because originally I was providing a kaleidoscope service under my photo restoration business. But then I branched off and created a separate business with my sister - hence the two sites.

Amy, playing with the kaleidoscope feature in PSP is a lot of fun. Your kaleidoscopes are beautiful - I love the colors! The thing about the PSP filter is that it doesn't allow you to see what portion of the photo is being used for the kaleidoscope, plus it distorts the original image by "pulling" it out from the center. That doesn't work too well when you want to make a kaleidoscope with people in it (as many people do for scrapbooking.) But there's no doubt the PSP filter makes beautiful images - you just can't "predict" them (at least I've never figured out how to.)

jaykita, I'm so happy you're inspired! I'd love to see some of the things you make!

I never knew that Painter had that feature! That's really fun - almost like a "real" kaleidoscope!!

Jeanie

[DannyRaphael]

Just what this thread needs... More kaleidoscope Photoshop actions!

Click here.

Have fun.

[DannyRaphael]

Tammy's at it again... Here's a link to v2 of her awesome Photoshop action.

Click HERE.

[CJ Swartz]

Here's some more post-processed k-scopes; used Tammy's V2 action for the first one -- thanks, Danny.

#1
After using the action, I selected a color that I didn't care for, copied it to another layer and re-colored it. Then I added noise and texture to some other areas, enlarged the canvas and added some color strokes around the edges of the circular area, and colored/textured the background.

#2
Made some colored swatches on a white canvas, ran Tammy's action and then ran Jeannie's action on that result. Then added some elements from the first result, copied them and centered them on the new one and then ran the Spherize filter. Then I processed different areas for color, etc. I'm having too much fun to keep track, and have no idea of what I'm going to do until I do it -- have the day off from work and kaleidoscopes to play with -- yippee!!

#3
Worked a different selection from the colored swatches,....etc., etc.....

#4
A photo of a bird with blue plumage -- the action kept the feathery look quite nicely, I think!

[CJ Swartz]

Seems an appropriate day to celebrate the kaleidoscope of colors in all of us surrounded by the earth and sky.

[BluebirdNut]

I've been playing with the different actions and methods, and combining them with some tweaks of my own. I've already determined that I'm probably going to buy a new external hard drive to hold all of my new pieces or artwork!

Anyway, I thought I'd post just a few of them

#1 is the CN tower in Toronto -- pretty basic, but I thought it was interesting
#2 is a Tree Swallow nest
With #3, the flower in the photo filled the frame to such an extent that I couldn't fit much of it into the wedge, no matter how I resized and rotated it. So I experimented with creating a larger background layer with some artistic effects applied to it, and positioning the photo itself in one corner of that layer, then applying the Kaleidoscope action to it. I thought the result was interesting.

Jeanie, you asked what we'd like to see tutorials on -- I for one would like to see some ideas on what to do with the kaleidoscopes after they're created to make some of those interesting scrapbook pages!

[Neve]

It's been so long since I last used the Kscope in PSP and am interested in a resurgence of interest here in them. I'm in the middle of doing Scrapbook LO's for my DIL and have 6 completed. I will definitely try a Kscope feature one next. PSP8 has a nice selection of selection shapes bundled but you can of course create your own selection shapes and use them. Here are a few samples below. Original image top left. I used the same Kscope setting for each shape just for this exercise. The circle shape I buttonized. The square one I cut out a centre piece and used it as a frame. Thanks for sharing and I hope you find something useful from this too.

[DannyRaphael]

Originally Posted by BluebirdNut

Hello - I just found this forum yesterday doing a Google search for a tutorial of some kind for doing kaleidoscope art. I fussed & played with the concept most of the day yesterday, coming up with some halfway decent samples done manually, but Jeanie's "actions" are brilliant! I'm in danger of becoming totally addicted! Thanks Jeanie .... I think ....

Bluebird...

In the flurry of recent activity in this thread I missed your first two posts. Glad you found us. A+ in your kaleidoscope interpretations.

Glad you're having fun and a big, albeit belated, W*E*L*C*O*M*E.

~Danny~

[ahutton]

PSP8's kaleidoscope variations can make some really pretty abstracts. I took a photo of a rather uninteresting tea cup, did Topography filter default, did kaleidoscope with 16 petals on default, then rand FP flexify with equirectangular, equirectangular and screen glue.

Fun to do.

Amy