Painter Essentials 4 Challenge

[Steve Conway]

Since I have PE4 and have not come up with a decent image after trying everything I know to try, I am asking for help.

Someone out there who has this software and uses the auto paint feature, must have had some success with turning photos into acceptable art.

So here is the deal. I am posting two images, one closeup and one wide shot. Without using anything but PE4 tools in the auto paint section, can someone come up with a good artified image on either one or both of these?
Then I need to know the exact settings used. Maybe in this way I can at least get a start on how to get a good auto painted image from it.

Any style, any brush, just please use only what is in PE4.

Thanks to all who care to give me a lesson or two with this program.

Steve C.

[DannyRaphael]

Sorry Steve. I don’t have PE4, but to my knowledge Painter X's auto-paint function is based on the PE4 implementation. I found this tutorial by John Deery helpful in connecting many of the dots with auto-paint. Google [including the quotes]: "Painting photos in Corel Painter X"

While experimenting I don't recall ever getting a decent interpretation via auto-paint in a single layer. (either too much or too little detail). I believe one of the keys is to render multiple layers (or individual .jpg files if PE4 does not support layers or layered file formats) using different brush settings in order to get variety in stroke size and direction, then open the layered file (or individual .jpgs) with Paint Shop Pro, Elements, Photoshop where they can be combined using the Eraser tool or layer masks (for those who have Photoshop).

The portrait image would seem suitable for AP (see before/after done with Painter X auto-paint + Photoshop), but I think the size of village scene -- the uploaded version, anyway -- is too small for AP.

If you want me to post the Painter X AP settings, let me know and I will do screenshots.

[Steve Conway]

Good info Danny, and I will try some layering using PE4 and Paint Shop Pro.

I know they want to sell this software to everyone they can, but it would be nice to know that the "auto paint" function is virtually useless alone.

Yes I would appreciate the AP settings very much. In PE4 there are these default settings to deal with:

Auto Painting type (style)
Smart blur 0-100%
Edge, color, and paper settings
Brush type (Lots of these available)

These, of course can be mixed and matched. Lot of possibilities here to get some good photo art, but it just doesn't happen, no matter how I set up an image.

Thanks for the reply...much appreciated.

Steve C.

[mikajomc]

Well Steve, I went ahead and downloaded the demo to try out PE4.
The first few photos I tried the default Auto Paint on were not bad. Not up to the quality of stuff posted here, but quite nice with a little bit of tweaking of layers, masks, bring back some detail, etc. But these were all small photos from the web.

I just tried it on one of my own photos from my 8MP camera. It was absolutely horrid! I just took the default AP settings and it completely deformed my daughter & her friend. So I guess it must have something to do with the size & resolution of the photo.

I sort of feel like I'm cheating when I use the AP anyway.

[Steve Conway]

Originally Posted by mikajomc

Well Steve, I went ahead and downloaded the demo to try out PE4.
The first few photos I tried the default Auto Paint on were not bad. Not up to the quality of stuff posted here, but quite nice with a little bit of tweaking of layers, masks, bring back some detail, etc. But these were all small photos from the web.

I just tried it on one of my own photos from my 8MP camera. It was absolutely horrid! I just took the default AP settings and it completely deformed my daughter & her friend. So I guess it must have something to do with the size & resolution of the photo.

I sort of feel like I'm cheating when I use the AP anyway.

Not at all. Seurat would take a year to do a painting with those little dots of paint that we can do in a few minutes with a computer. It certainly does not diminish Seurat's work, and some of the computer Seurat paintings look very good.

I'm just happy that a computer will let me do art, because without it I would be lost trying to paint anything worthwhile.

As for the size of the image used in PE4, I've tried all sizes and still come out with garbage.

As Danny said, the auto paint feature in PE4 does not do decent paintings without help from other graphics programs, plugins, layering etc.

Notice how many people have answered my challenge to make something decent, using only PE4 auto paint, with the photos I posted?

Oh well...it's only money.

Steve C.

[Joeven]

Steve I did these with Painter X so I'm not sure if you have the same settings. All were done using auto painter setting set to smart stroke. Other then applying a surface texture set to luminance at 10% and using Italian Water Paper setting every thing was done in auto mode. Saved for the web in Photoshop.

1.Gouache Thick Flat
2.Gouache Thick Round
3.Water Color Broad
4.water Color Soft Diffused


Joe

[DannyRaphael]

Steve...

Based on your settings description, I realize I was misinformed about the similarities between the PE4 and Painter X implementations of Auto-paint. Nonetheless here are screenshots of the settings I used for each layer autopainted in Painter X, and the Layers Palette in Photoshop where I finished up.

[Steve Conway]

Originally Posted by Joeven

Steve I did these with Painter X so I'm not sure if you have the same settings. All were done using auto painter setting set to smart stroke. Other then applying a surface texture set to luminance at 10% and using Italian Water Paper setting every thing was done in auto mode. Saved for the web in Photoshop.

1.Gouache Thick Flat
2.Gouache Thick Round
3.Water Color Broad
4.water Color Soft Diffused


Joe

Joe, I appreciate the help. I have downloaded these and will give them a shot. Can't remember if PE4 has a "smart stroke" setting as such, but must have something comparable, if not.

Here attached is the PE 4 work space set on "auto paint" to show the difference in X and Essentials.

Thanks again.

Steve

[Steve Conway]

Thanks for these shots Danny. I'm going to try some things, going the layer route, based on what you sent.

We'll see what I can come up with.

Much appreciated.

Steve C.

[mikajomc]

Steve-
I found some links on Auto Painting. They are for PE3 not 4. I uninstalled my version of PE so I can't try them out. And I can see that the settings are different for 3 vs 4.
However, I thought you might be interested in them.
Be warned, CreativeMac pages always take forever to load (at least for me).
AutoPaint Pt1
http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.c...e.jsp?id=35873
AutoPaint Pt2
http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.c...e.jsp?id=36136

[Steve Conway]

Originally Posted by mikajomc

Steve-
I found some links on Auto Painting. They are for PE3 not 4. I uninstalled my version of PE so I can't try them out. And I can see that the settings are different for 3 vs 4.
However, I thought you might be interested in them.
Be warned, CreativeMac pages always take forever to load (at least for me).
AutoPaint Pt1
http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.c...e.jsp?id=35873
AutoPaint Pt2
http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.c...e.jsp?id=36136

Thanks Jordan.

I tried these a while back and had some degree of success but am still struggling, although I haven't tried anything in a while.

I appreciate your helping.

Steve C.

[gholmes1936]

Originally Posted by Steve Conway

Thanks Jordan.

I tried these a while back and had some degree of success but am still struggling, although I haven't tried anything in a while.

I appreciate your helping.

Steve C.

One might try the tutorials linked at the bottom of this page. http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli.../1190317176801

It shows layering and other tools I didn't know were in Essentials.

[Steve Conway]

Originally Posted by gholmes1936

One might try the tutorials linked at the bottom of this page. http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli.../1190317176801

It shows layering and other tools I didn't know were in Essentials.

Thanks gholmes. I knew about these and have tried them with only a slight degree of success.

I just don't seem to get the painted strokes and detail I am after. Most of my stuff looks like something from the "abstract" days...lots of paint splattered everywhere. You don't have the control, even with all the brushes and adjustments, to get good detail, at least that is what I find to be the case.

I find that the paint strokes don't seem to follow the lines etc of the original and for that reason you don't get the detail. There should be a way to adjust for more detail or less detail, but except for stopping the auto painting process before it finishes,(which seldom works), the program has no way to increase detail. At least I can't find it.

Thanks again for your interest.

Steve C.

[gholmes1936]

Here is one of my cats and another one of him done completely in C. P. Essentials 4. Of course they wound up loaded backwards. the before is after the painted one....

[gholmes1936]

Here is one of the woman above. What do you think?

[gholmes1936]

This one is done completely with presets. Tell me about it!

[Steve Conway]

Originally Posted by gholmes1936

This one is done completely with presets. Tell me about it!

First I can tell you it's much better than I have come up with. Has more of the detail that I am looking for. Guess that is what I am most anxious to achieve with this program is more detail while still using the presets in auto paint. I seem to get no decent detail or so much that it doesn't resemble art at all.

If you care to tell me what presets you used I'll try them and see if I can make my stuff better.

I really appreciate your interest.

Steve C.

[gholmes1936]

First, I selected the sky and added a touch of blue to it.

I didn't use any special settings, just those that the application set depending on which style of painting I selected in the right hand pull down (under "Auto-painting")

Then after that was finished I went to the "Apply Surface Texture" and selected
"Image Luminance" under the "USING" pulldown. The settings in that area were those that i found most pleasing.

I am enclosing two screen shots of the settings I used for this latest rendition.

[Steve Conway]

Originally Posted by gholmes1936

First, I selected the sky and added a touch of blue to it.

I didn't use any special settings, just those that the application set depending on which style of painting I selected in the right hand pull down (under "Auto-painting")

Then after that was finished I went to the "Apply Surface Texture" and selected
"Image Luminance" under the "USING" pulldown. The settings in that area were those that i found most pleasing.

I am enclosing two screen shots of the settings I used for this latest rendition.

Thanks for the help. I'll certainly try what you sent and have suggested. Maybe I will even come up with something useable....

Steve C.