Drawn Picture- But how?

[Steve Conway]

Thanks for the advice Danny. Am hearing both sides...mostly pretty positive. As I probably won't be using it commercially It may work ok for me. I am getting a 15% discount also, but will try the demo.

Wish I had known you had it for sale before you got rid of it.

Thanks much.

Steve

Originally Posted by DannyRaphael

Caution. This is a pretty spendy plugin and based on my experience with it (before I sold it -- too few uses for the work I do; some effects were totally useless), IMO it would not achieve the look of the subject image.

Unfortnately the demo only lets you assess results in the thumbnail screen about 2" x 2", which is not nearly large enough to make an intelligent assessment of the final result.

Since it worked under PS7, I cannot imagine it not working with PS6 or PSP, but as Nancy suggested it wouldn't hurt to check.

Your mileage will vary.

[Steve Conway]

Thanks Nancy. Appreciate your feedback & will contact the folks there.

Steve

Originally Posted by Nanls

I don't know Steve. The people there are really nice, and I'm sure could answer any questions. Here is the website: http://www.lucisart.com/

~Nancy~

_______________________________________________
www.photoart123.com

[Steve Conway]

Nancy, am playing with Lucis Art Plugin demo. Can you tell me the settings you used for this image?

Steve

Originally Posted by Nanls

here is the image Swampy supplied with the Lucis Art filter.

~Nancy

____________________________________________
www.photoart123.com

[Photo678]

Originally Posted by Yoolan

all my trys are useless. its so hard to get a similar result.

there is no magic plugin that will take one picture and achieve this effect. You need to bracket your shots +2 -2 and then combine them.

Most of the plugins are dependent on knowing what you are doing in camera

[Nanls]

Originally Posted by Steve Conway

Nancy, am playing with Lucis Art Plugin demo. Can you tell me the settings you used for this image?

Steve

Sure Steve... close anyway. I "believe" I used Whyeth: radial button "3" Mix "33" and then once again with "exposure" on the same settings (or maybe a little less). You'll have to play, but it is close. I have the mac version. Don't know if it differs from the PC version or not. I really like this filter and I do use it quite a bit, unlike some of the other filters I have purchased.
Have fun!

~Nancy~
______________________________________________
www.photoart123.com

[byRo]

First, thanks to Swampy for such a nice image to play with.

Here's my way to get there ......

For the HDR effect:
1) Duplicate the layer;
2) Click on each channel in turn, apply Image>Adjustments>Equalize. *1

For the Sharpening / Edges:
1) Duplicate the layer;
2) Run the Filter>Other>Custom with:*2

 0 -1  0
-1  4 -1
 0 -1  0

3) Adjust with levels, white point at 127 - gives you a sort of outline sketch effect;
4) Set the blending of this layer to Multiply.

This looks good, but to get it more like the example:
1) Levels, lowering gamma to 0.8;
2) Slight yellow tint applied.

*1 I'm finishing a plug-in to do a controlled equalize but on this image we can just let it rip;
*2 Also known as the Laplace filter. If this is scaring you away, just use the High-pass filter - not quite as sharp but it's OK.

Hope this helps
(and it's a lot cheaper )

Rô

[Syd]

Ro, thank you so much for sharing your technique with us. As always you have presented it in a very readable way. I had never used the Laplace Filter before (had seen it once but had no idea what is was for) and now you have inspired me to fiddle around with it. Photoshop never ceases to amaze me. I have been using it for about a year and a half now and just when I think I am getting the hang of it, and know most of what there is to know about it, along comes someone with yet another completely novel approach to the situation and I realise that I probably haven't even scratched the surface. Anyway thanks to you and all the other really good folk at Retouch Pro for all your hard work and sharing. I hope I can do the same one day.

I have one question, however. I am a bit lost on Point No. 3.

3) Adjust with layers, white point at 127 - gives you a sort of outline sketch effect;
4) Set the blending of this layer to Multiply.

How do I adjust the white point with layers? Do you mean turn down the opacity of the layers until the white point is at 127? I am not quite how I would measure the white point anyway without using levels. And then Point No. 4. What layer should be set to Multiply. I am sure the answer is very simple but I just can't seem to work it out.

Sincerely Syd

[Yoolan]

thanks ro...good advice..
what do the equalize command does?

[byRo]

Originally Posted by Syd

.....How do I adjust the white point with layers?

Sorry, Syd, that was a 2 a.m. typo.
What I meant was Levels, oops! (see attachments for before levels and after)
I´ll correct my post.

Originally Posted by Syd

What layer should be set to Multiply.

When we put the white point at half-way most (half ) of our "Laplace" layer just became pure white.
Multiply blending will darken an image - with a white "overlay" having no effect at all and black making everything black.
So this is what we want, just darken the outlines and leave the rest alone.(see attachments for final levels palette)

Hope this clears things up.

Rô

[Cassidy]

Some great methods here. Thought I'd try too (hope swampy doesn't mind me using her image).

Duplicate main. Run Filter Accented Edges on a width of 1, duplicate, set blending mode to screen and drop opacity to 40%

[byRo]

Originally Posted by Yoolan

...what do the equalize command does?

I don't know if you're comfortable with histograms, Yoolan - if so, then the first two attachments below will show what's happening.

If not, putting it in words: any image has a mixture of highlights, shadows and mid-tones. When an image gets concentrated in just one of these tones, although it may look cool, the overall contrast is low.
What the equalize function does is to (try and *) fill up each of the 256 channel levels equally - that way we get the best possible distribution of all tones. This will usually give us an image with more contrast.

* actually it's not so easy, and you will usually end up with unwanted artifacts where the equalize function had to skip a few tones.

OK, so why make a plug-in if PS already does the work?

1) If you run PS Equalize on an image (not the separate channels), it will equalize the sum of R, G and B - which, if you know a bit about channels and luminosity, is a very wierd thing to do and doesn't correspond to anything useful;

2) Sometimes we want to equalize the channels, sometimes the overall luminosity (which PS does not do) - and sometimes a mix of the two;

3) PS Equalization is all or nothing, just fill up each level as best you can - this is what makes the horrible artifacts. Often what you really wanted was some sort of smooth curve.

(oops, think I got carried away here - I'll stop now)

Rô

[Syd]

Got it Ro. You're a star. Thanks.

Syd

[Cassidy]

Amazing the affects you can achieve, using Ro's method of equalizing all channels, noticed that the green channel was fairly dark and so upped the brightness on that channel alone, then noticing the colour a little skewed added a warming filter. Hmm after playing with some photos notice that not all photos are candidates for this type of treatment.

[Steve Conway]

Thanks Nancy.

I am trying a lot of settings here, but this plugin is really driving me batty. These figures will give me a starting point.

This plugin does work in Paint Shop Pro and I am still trying to figure out the fine tuning on the demo. The small window doesn't help much.

Thanks again.

Steve

Originally Posted by Nanls

Sure Steve... close anyway. I "believe" I used Whyeth: radial button "3" Mix "33" and then once again with "exposure" on the same settings (or maybe a little less). You'll have to play, but it is close. I have the mac version. Don't know if it differs from the PC version or not. I really like this filter and I do use it quite a bit, unlike some of the other filters I have purchased.
Have fun!

~Nancy~
______________________________________________
www.photoart123.com

[singlo]

Here is a 5 minutes quick attempt using different workflow that I made up as I went along:

1. Duplicate the orginal.

2. Edge sharpening using Alpha channel (threshold 0, radius 1, amount 270). I made an action of this technique.

3. Apply layer mask to remove locally areas of excessive halos like the tree leaves.

4. Copy a blue channel to an empty layer on the top and set the blending mode to linear burn, opacity 25%.

By the way, you can't simulate HDRI using just one image (unless it is a raw file) ..you need at least two images of bracket exposures to extend the dynmaic range.