Impressionist plugin: Examples using your own pictures

[DannyRaphael]

A good friend, Harry Ellerton, who was recently inspired by one of Duv's creations, had a suggestion: "How about a thread dedicated to creations rendered exclusively by the Microsoft Impressionist plugin (PC only) with the requirement that specific Impressionist setting details be provided..."

Sounds like fun!

Guidelines:
* No Buzz, Flaming Pear, Virtual Painter, Zero, etc. filters/plugins
* No arty or distortion filters
* OK to sharpen or use filters like Unsharp Mask, Find Edges or Smart Blur/Edge Only for edge definition. Adjustment Layers OK, too.

Include the Impressionist Category and Varient, e.g., Chalk-Chunk Strokes. If you make setting changes, please note them, otherwise default settings are assumed.

Go for it!

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Use your own "before" picture. You don't need to use the one I used.

There's no time limit on this. Add to this thread whenever you're inspired to do so.

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Details on mine (see Layers Palette snapshot). Image built from the bottom up.
* Layer A: Copy of Background. Impressionist Watercolor: Damp Translucent Wash. Setting changes: Background = Image. Pressure = 100.
* B: Copy of Background. (Pin Light) Pencil Sketch: Soft Detailed (default settings)
* C: Copy of Background. (Luminosity). Layer > Add Layer Mask > Hide all. Painted white around leg area to restore a little detail.

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OK... Your turn. Let's see some creative uses of Impressionist.

Thanks, Harry, for the idea, and to Tom Judd who inspired me to rewrite the instructions for my initial creation!

~Danny~

[Duv]

Style: Pointillist Sparse
Background: Dark Blue
Brush: 25%
coverage: 100%
Pressure: 200
Added Sandwater Silver frame.

Cheers
Dave

[Cheryl H]

How could I resist this one. I read the directions as 1 pass of impressionist and nothing else, so here it is.

Custom preset 01 CH textured--crackled paint 1

General
background: sepia image
brush size 100%
coverage 98
pressure 105

Brush
brush--pain2c (use family)
smudge 0
pressure 105

Size
number of sizes 3
min 6
max 10

Color
Stroke color--from image
Jitter H 5, S 5, B 5
brightness 50
contrast 60

Paper
texture roughsto (might not be built in--I've made lots of custom paper) --edit--invert texture--
scale 50
grain 25
relief 2

[Cheryl H]

You shouldn't have gotten me started.

I wanted to share a technique I use in addition to settings.

Settings for custom a custom Impressionist brush I created ("02 CH non-textured--smudge 1"), which was used on both interpretations:

General
background--image
coverage 96
pressure 80

Brush
smud3c (use family)

Size
number of sizes-4
min 6
max 12

Stroke
H5, B5, S10

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Before applying the settings above on the first (left) attachment, I created a selection using the following steps.

1. Image > Mode > CYMK
2. Duplicate black channel (turn it off so it looks normal)
3. Image > Mode > RGB
4. Load black copy as a selection
5. Run Impressionist

Applying Impressionist with this selection active preserves some of the image detail.

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[For those into actions, I wrote one (attached below) that performs the steps Cheryl described above. - Danny]

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Modified by DannyR to clarify steps and add PS action.

[DannyRaphael]

Take note of the 1st post: I tweaked the guidelines a bit. (Rank has it privs.!)

While Impressionist does some wonderful textures and stroke effects, on some images you need to restore some detail/line definition on top of what's been done with Impressionist.

Hence, the following:
* Duplicated Background
* Applied Impressionist Chalk - Chunky Strokes
* Duplicated BG again
* Applied Blur > Smart Blur > Edge Only and CTRL + I to invert the result. Changed blend mode to Darken.
* Added a Layer Mask and zapped unwanted lines.
* Added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and boosted Saturation to about 40

For some real interesting results, try the Apply Image command on the layer created by Impressionist.

~Danny~

[Cheryl H]

The image on the left (the clearer one) has the black channel loaded as a selection. I like this technique since I get the impressionist feel but still keep some detail.

Apply image looks interesting--I'm going to have to play with it this weekend.

[DannyRaphael]

Chalk-Detailed Opaque Strokes can be customized to render more or less detail by selecting different brush tips or adjusting options like brush size, coverage or pressure.

In this one...
* Layer A: Duplicate Background. Apply Impressionst Chalk-Detailed Opaque Strokes. Brush settings: Size, Coverage and Pressure to 60, 100, 100.
* B: Duplicate A and apply Unsharp Mask
* C: Duplicate Background again. Apply Impressionst Chalk-Detailed Opaque Strokes. Changed brush to chak6b.tif. Added Layer Mask and blended with layers below.
* D: Duplicate Background again. Apply Crayon-Short Choppy Strokes. This setting "breaks up" solid color areas like the background wall and some of the umbrella panels. I then applied Charcoal-Default to give it more of a brushed look. Added Layer Mask and blended with layers below.
* E: Added Hue/Sat adjustment layer to boost colors.

Are we having fun yet?

~Danny~

[DannyRaphael]

Used the action I wrote and posted above in Cheryl's post to create a selection based on the Black channel from a CMYK version of the image. (Pretty slick method, CH!!)

Then Impressionist - Chalk: Detailed Opaque Strokes was applied to a duplicate of the Background. The selection resulted in the retention of detail in several important areas of the image, e.g., tree trunks and larger limbs and people.

Deselected and duplicated the layer just rendered. Applied Impressionist - Chalk: Detailed Opaque Strokes again changing the Brush/Coverage/Pressure settings to 166, 90, 96 for a different look. Blended this layer with the layer below with a layer mask.

~Danny~

[DannyRaphael]

This is the most fun I've had in a while. Thanks, Harry, for suggesting this thread.

On this one:
* Layer A: Duplicated the Background and applied Impressionist Crayon: Short Choppy Strokes.
* A: Changed the layer blend mode from Normal to Hard Light.
* B: Duplicated layer B and applied the Charcoal: Default variant 4 times to "rough up" the water a bit. Used a Layer Mask to selectively apply the effect.

~Danny~

[DannyRaphael]

Here's another variation on the boats...

Layer A: Duplicate Background.
A: Blur > Smart Blur (Edge Only). Experiment with the settings.
A: Ctrl + I (invert) to get black lines on a white background.
A: Blur > Gaussian Blur (~ 1 pxl or so)
A: Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Experiment with the settings.
A: Stylize > Diffuse > Anisotropic
A: Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Experiment with the settings.

The result you get will probably be somewhat different than what I got due to setting variances. Not to worry. It'll be okay.

B: Duplicate layer A. Paint over "the black lines in the water" with white.

C: Duplicate B. Apply Impressionist's Pencil Sketch: Detailed Monochrome variant.

C: Immediately afterwards Edit > Fade (60% opacity) was applied to back off the effect a bit.

D: The original background was duplicated an dragged to the top of the layer stack.

D: Impressionist's Crayon - Short Choppy Strokes variant was applied.

D: Blend mode changed from Normal to Hard Light.

Optional (not shown), but I like this A LOT:

E: To the top of the layer stack, add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Saturation = -100, Lightness = +50. This gives it a gray/pencil-like look.

Are we having fun yet?

~Danny

[Cheryl H]

using image as paper texture

This isn't a killer tip, but is something to try as a novelty.

1. Duplicate image and desaturate.
2. Save grayscale version as a tif file (it's not necessary to put it in the papers folder, but keep track of where you saved it).
3. Load impressionist and choose a favorite preset (don't run it yet). In the paper section set relief to around 20 (I set the grain to around 20 too but it shouldn't be necessary). Click on the thumbnail of the paper and choose your grayscale image. I find inverting the texture worked best on the sample images I tried. Make sure scale is at 100.
4. Let the filter run. You get an embossed image.

You can also choose an alternate image to use--for example use butterflies for one and flowers for the other.

[Trimoon]

Yellow Lotus

This is a Yellow Lotus; I used the Impressionist Tutorial on this one.
I did some smudging, layer blending and texturing.




Larger Image

[Diane]

Impressionist Butterfly

Photo is mine. I opened image, duped background, Impressionist setting:
Marker-opague strokes at its default setting, changed opacity of duped layer to 72 % , merged layers, duped again, used Impressionist Chalk-Detailed Opaque strokes at its default setting, changed opacity to 65%.

[Diane]

Bee Balms

opened image, duped background, impressionist-chalk-medium coverage-settings brush 100 %, Coverage 100%, pressure 86%, reduced opacity to 67%
merged layers, duped again, changed blend mode to soft light.
Photo is mine

[Diane]

Amish Buggy

Photo is mine. Opened image, duped it, Impressionist: Crayon Distressed Fresco2: settings : Brush size 47% , Coverage 63% Pressure 90%
Opacity on layer changed to 85%