How would you do this?

[Doug Nelson]

I spend way too much time experimenting in Photoshop. I'll be mowing the grass or watching a movie and I'll think of something and wonder how to do it or what it would look like if I did it. Occasionally, these pan out to something interesting, and I post it here.

Today however, I thought I'd try something different and see what happened. I had another of these flashes of curiosity, but instead of opening Photoshop and experimenting I'm typing this message so you can experiment, and we'll see what kind of dialog happens.

Here's what I'm wondering: if you severely posterized a photo (say, to 12 tones, but not critical) how would you go about putting a space (white or transparent) in between the boundaries between each tone? Could it be automated? Could each tone get its own layer? Could the space be randomized, or at least varied?

[PatrickB]

To make a start: I'd say, Find Edges and get on from there.

[saby]

Hi Doug!

If I'm understand your problem exactly try this:

change picture mode indexed color define your exact colors than start to separate them with color range tool copy them to channels. How to automate this is a very-very good question.
saby

[kiska]

Is this the sort of thing you mean. The photo came via 'photo-art'.

desat
posterize-10
b/c
select 10x, color range
stroke each selection ,3px
copy color bg, move to top of layers
set at overlay, 100%
dup, set at soft light, 70%

AUTOMATE???? dunno

kiska

[saby]

Try this action some afterworks need of course