October 2007 - Posts

• Sharing Custom Paper Textures

  The problem with most Painter resources (paper textures libraries etc.) is that although they are traditionally forward compatible, they are seldom backward compatible with earlier Painter versions. Prior to Painter X, many of the resources were also not cross-platform compatible without some form of modification. In this article I will demonstrate a method I have developed to extract paper textures from any Papers library in Painter 7 upwards. The texture tiles are then saved as individual images which can subsequently be shared and opened by the recipient in any version of Painter which allows paper capture, thus negating the need for Mac platform conversion. If you are still a little confused by the concept, here is a link to a texture by Roberto Campus which GoldCoin then captures as a Painter paper texture in this video. Assuming you don't have the original texture as a stand alone image, the initial step is to create one from an existing Papers library texture. Firstly we will need the Papers library palette open on our desktop, which in Painter IX is achieved by selecting Window menu> Library Palettes> Show Papers.   Before extracting the texture tile, unless one wishes to create a different texture appearance at default settings when recaptured, it is important to ensure that both the Paper Scale and Paper Contrast settings are at 100 percent, with Paper Brightness set to 50 percent. Once these values are set, we need to obtain the original texture selection size. By good fortune, this information is provided in the Papers palette by the number of Rows (pixel height) and number of Columns (pixel width). Armed with this valuable information, we now know that the original capture size for this tile was 100 x 100 pixels.       The next step is to create a new Painter document 100 pixels wide by 100 high at 72 ppi. What we are going to do now is to select a specific custom variant (Paper Extractor) and paint the entire canvas in our new document. This specialized variant has the main color saved as white (RGB 255,255,255), and the additional color as black (RGB 0,0,0) by default, and to ensure extraction works correctly, these values must remain associated. This variant can be downloaded via a link at the end of this article, and can be used in any version of Painter from 7 upwards. You can see from the screen shot below, that I have placed the above variant in the default Chalk brushes category, but this can be located in any brush category. The finished painted texture tile can also be seen to the right, and you will note that the imagery in the Papers palette preview window shows this tile offset. This is because the imagery in the preview window can be dragged with the cursor, and will only show a portion or tiled portion, depending on the original captured texture size and any subsequent scaling.           It is now time to save our texture image in a format which can be opened in any version of Painter, and on both Mac and PC platforms. My preference would be to save as a Photoshop  psd file for DVD or CD distribution and a maximum quality jpg image for web distribution. Mac users will need to assure the appropriate Windows extension is added to the file name.     And here it is, the final texture image first saved as a psd in Painter, then as a maximum quality jpg file in Photoshop using a minus 3 adjustment to paper Brightness prior to selecting the Save for Web option. Please feel free to download the image to the left and capture it as a paper texture in your Painter version.      Instructions for Paper Capture 1. With the opened image document to the front in the application, choose Select menu> All. 2. From the open Papers palette menu, choose Capture Paper, and in the resulting Save Paper dialogue, move the Crossfade slider all the way to the left (0.00) before naming the paper and clicking OK. The new texture should now be visible in the Paper Preview Window of the Papers palette. 3. Create a new custom papers library via the Paper Movers dialogue (Papers palette menu> Paper Mover), and drag the newly created texture icons from the left hand pane of the Paper Mover dialogue to the new library in the right hand pane before clicking Quit in the dialogue. Restoring Paper Default Settings Prior to Painter IX, irrespective of any adjustments made to the default settings in the Papers palette, these new settings would be lost whenever the application was closed or a new texture selected. In Painter IX through IX, any changes made to individual paper scale, contrast and brightness settings are automatically saved. However, unlike the brush variants, there is no option to automatically restore the default paper settings. I therefore recorded a macro script which will perform this task with a single click. This script is also available for download at the end of this article, along with a bonus script for automatically desaturating imagery (useful for viewing potential textures in 'grayscale' prior to initial capture). The custom palette screen shot to the far left shows icons for the Desaturate and Reset Paper Default scripts. In this case, the scripts may be invoked by either clicking on their respective icon in the custom palette, or by selecting the script from the custom Texture Scripts library and clicking the Play button at the bottom of the Scripts palette. Due to a bug in Painter, the image in the Preview window of the Papers palette does not automatically update when the Reset Paper Default script is run. However, subsequent dragging of the preview image forces a refresh. If the scripts are to be run via. a custom palette, it is important to first locate the respective script library at the top level of the Painter IX / IX.5 users folder, or in the case of Painter X, at the top level of the User Workspace folder under which Workspace the respective custom palette will be created and used. Due to another Painter bug, immediately after creating the custom palette, I strongly recommend quitting and restarting Painter prior to running a script from a custom palette for the first time. I have experienced several application crashes after forgetting to do this. When scripts are to be run (played) directly from the Scripts palette, the script library location can be of your choosing. Resource Downloads The download folders contain the following; a Painter script library (Texture Scripts or Texture Scripts.ssd for the PC version) . These should load successfully in Painter 7 and above via the Load Library option from the Scripts Selector sub menu in the Scripts palette. The Script library contains 2 custom scripts (Desaturate and Reset Paper Default). a single variant xml file, Paper Extractor (again for Painter 7 and above). The variant file must be moved or copied from the containing folder and placed in an existing Brush Category folder (i.e one already containing xml brush variant files) in a library of your choice. There are no restrictions on use, other than the resources are not to be offered for sale or redistributed without my prior consent. Download Texture_Stuff_pc.zip (12 KB) for the PC platform Download Texture_Stuff_mac.dmg.gz (8 KB) for the Mac platform   Posted Oct 14 2007, 08:14 PM by David Gell with 1 comment(s) Filed under: brushes, papers, SoftGrainColorize, scripts

• Kaleidoscope Revisited

  I have learned from experience not to take any Painter feature at face value. The Kaleidoscope Plugin is a classic example of a feature which may appear an interesting novelty, and after a few plays, is left in the bottom of the toy cupboard and forgotten about. In this article, we will resurrect this plugin as I demonstrate a technique encompassing the following; Use Painter's Kaleidoscope plugin to obtain new symmetrical imagery from a photograph or existing artwork. Capture the plugin produced imagery as a custom paper. With the aid of a custom variant, use the above paper for design and inspiration in creating concept and fantasy artwork. What I find interesting about this technique is that it is possible to begin with for example, a cute photograph of a puppy dog as the source image, and derive from this imagery which can be emotionally very dark and disturbing. The Kaleidoscope plugin can also produce tiles of great elegance and beauty.   Sorry for the poor image quality with this one, but can you see the four alien skeletal figures making up each corner of the central floret? Each captured Kaleidoscope tile originated from the default 100 x 100 pixel size, selected via the kaleidoscope dialogue. You can of course choose a larger size. After capture as a paper texture, by means of the paper scale slider in the Papers palette, the tile can be enlarged up to 400 percent (albeit with some loss of resulting image quality). In this example, another custom kaleidoscopic texture was used to render the border. Please click in image to view a slightly larger version.                  The custom variant used to render all the images in this article employs the Soft Grain Colorize subcategory in Corel Painter. This allows us to simultaneously apply both the main and additional colors selected in the Colors palette, which in turn are influenced by the luminosity of the currently selected paper texture. For a more natural media appearance, any grain exhibiting variant such as the default Square Chalk may be substituted. In the case of Soft Grain Colorize based variants, unlike the default Square Chalk variant, when painting at 100 percent opacity on the canvas or default layer in combination with a high contrast paper texture, the painted regions corresponding to the white paper texture areas will be covered by the main selected color in the Colors palette (even if that color is white). However, by painting on a layer with the composite method set to Gel or Multiply, transparency corresponding to the white areas of the paper texture is again achieved (although tinted by selected main colors or values other than white). Experiment with adjusting the Paper Brightness and Paper Contrast settings in the Papers palette, as these can significantly effect the appearance of the rendered stroke.       In this case, when the additional color is set to black, and the main color to white in the Colors palette, there is a direct WYSIWYG relationship between the imagery viewed in the Paper Preview Window of the Papers palette and that rendered by the custom variant used. This means that the results of changing paper brightness and contrast settings in the papers palette may also be previewed before making the stroke. Regarding the example on the left, the imagery was modified top centre by painting in black over some of the existing imagery to form what looks like the beak of an alien bird (viewed from the top). A little known feature of the Soft Grain Colorize algorithm is that by setting the Paper Contrast to 0 percent (no grain visible), with the additional color set to black and main to white, the Paper Brightness slider can be used as a near linear 'grayscale' value picker. In this case, the value displayed in the Paper Preview Window will also correspond to that rendered by the variant at 100 percent opacity.                 Here I have modeled the form by using an eraser to cut away selected areas. Other than that, the custom kaleidoscope texture and selected main and additional colors make up the rendered stroke as depicted. As a side note, I feel it is important to mention symmetry at this point. When symmetrical modeling by erasure or painting over the texture imagery, it may be better to proceed as follows; 1. After creating the desired profile, choose the best side of the imagery and using the Rectangular Selection tool, select that side, with one edge of the selection exactly (as near as possible) on the vertical axis (or horizontal axis, depending on the symmetry you require) of the shaped imagery. 2. Click inside the selection using the Layer Adjuster tool to float the selection to a new default layer. Reselect the Canvas in the Layers palette, Select menu> All followed by the Backspace/Delete key. You should now be able to see only one half of the original imagery. 3. Reselect the layer in the Layers palette and choose Duplicate Layer from the Layers menu. With either of the layers selected, choose Effects menu> Orientation> Flip Horizontal (or Flip Vertical if horizontal axis symmetry is required). 4. Using the Layer Adjuster tool, drag the imagery on the selected layer to align with the opposite side before selecting Drop All from the Layers palette menu.     Creating and Capturing Kaleidoscope Tiles as Paper Textures The image above shows the five original Kaleidoscope tiles (actual size 100 x 100 pixels) used in creating the previous imagery in order of occurrence. Discovering suitable and interesting tiles is like embarking on a treasure hunt armed with a magnifying lens (although the Kaleidoscope window does not actually magnify the underlying imagery). I must also warn you that the process can become very addictive. The suggested steps are as follows; 1. In Painter, open an image over which the kaleidoscope lens will be used. The source imagery should ideally contain areas of contrast and detail. It may be preferable to work with a copy of your original source image, just in case it is accidentally saved after modification. 2. As the purpose in this case is to produce paper textures, we are not interested in color, so I suggest first desaturating the source image via Effects menu> Tonal Control> Adjust Colors, and in the Adjust Colors dialogue, move the Saturation slider all the way to the left before clicking OK. Depending on the image, you may also wish to make adjustments in the Equalize dialogue to improve contrast (Effects menu> Tonal Control> Equalize). 3. Invoke the kaleidoscope plugin dialogue, which in Painter IX is achieved via Layers menu> Dynamic Plugins> Kaleidoscope, or by clicking on the Dynamic Plugins icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and selecting Kaleidoscope from the drop down menu. If a tile size other than 100 x 100 pixels is required, enter the new size in the Kaleidoscope dialogue before clicking OK. 4. You will notice that a new Kaleidoscope plugin layer has been automatically created in the Layers palette. The Layer Adjuster tool has also been automatically selected and a Kaleidoscope lens window has appeared in the centre of the open image. 5. With the Kaleidoscope layer selected in the Layers palette, use the layer adjuster tool to slowly drag the Kaleidoscope lens over the underlying imagery. As you do this, you should notice that the imagery in the lens continually updates. 6. When an interesting tile is visible in the lens, cease dragging and then fine tune the lens position to obtain the best tile imagery. 7. Again, with the Kaleidoscope layer still selected in the Layers palette, choose Drop and Select from the Layers palette menu. 8. Choose Edit menu> Copy followed by Edit menu> Paste in New Image. 9. With the new image document to the front in the application, choose Select menu> All. 10. From the open Papers palette menu, choose Capture Paper, and in the resulting Save Paper dialogue, move the Crossfade slider all the way to the left (0.00) before naming the paper and clicking OK. The new texture should now be visible in the Paper Preview Window of the Papers palette. 11. Create a new custom papers library via the Paper Movers dialogue (Papers palette menu> Paper Mover), and drag the newly created texture icons from the left hand pane of the Paper Mover dialogue to the new library in the right hand pane before clicking Quit in the dialogue. Resource Downloads The following download folders contain the following; a Paper library (Kaleidoscope1 or Kaleidoscope1.pap for the PC version) . These should load successfully in Painter 7 and above via the Load Library option from the Papers palette menu. The Paper library contains 9 custom papers (including the ones used to create all the images in this article). I recommend first copying or moving the library to your Painter application folder. a folder containing 3 individual brush variant xml files (again for Painter 7 and above). These variants employ the Soft Grain Colorize (SGC) algorithm, and in combination with the above paper textures (after appropriate adjustments to Paper Scale, Brightness and Contrast settings), will produce imagery similar to the examples in this article. Each variant file must be moved or copied from the containing folder and individually placed in an existing Brush Category folder (i.e one already containing xml brush variant files) in a library of your choice. There are no restrictions on use, other than the resources are not to be offered for sale or redistributed without my prior consent. Download kaleidoscopy_pc.zip (74 KB) for the PC platform Download Kaleidoscopy.dmg.gz (75 KB) for the Mac platform   Posted Oct 09 2007, 11:18 AM by David Gell with no comments Filed under: brushes, kaleidoscope, papers, SoftGrainColorize

• Birth of a Sand Art Brush

  In my previous article on brush creation, I mentioned that the current project I am working on is to simulate sand art. Those who know Painter will generally agree that because of the broad and immense depth of the application, there is often more than one way to achieve the desired result. Referring again to my previous post, I had assumed that a special eraser would be required to build up the density of the 'sand' media at the edges adjacent to where in the analogue version, the hand or finger had dragged the sand off a selected area of the glass. In Painter, I was able to achieve this effect in the 'sand' brush stoke itself, rather than in a subsequent erasing process (although the Eraser tool was deployed selectively in Painter IX.5 to remove any unwanted sand particles). The recipe for the sand brush employed the Watercolor Airbrush dab type, which I had experimented with previously whilst developing a spatter toothbrush variant. It was discovered that by using the Watercolor Profile tip from the Size palette in combination with the Wacom tablet's stylus tilt and bearing support, the effect I was looking for was achievable. Below is a doodle I did in Painter IX.5 to demonstrate the effect; The Next Steps in the Brush Making Process Although there is no reason why the Sand Art brush could not exist as a single variant in say the default Watercolor brush category, my ultimate aim will be to create a brush category of sand art related variants in order to be able to produce finished sand artwork with the minimum of brush library/category switching. The next stage in the process involves making references to the analogue version combined with detailed exploration of the main parameters and settings which influence the brush characteristics I am interested in. In this case, providing the results in Painter are visually pleasing, I do not feel the need to replicate the analogue equivalent exactly. As the brush creation process evolves, more unique variants will then be saved when differences in the strokes produced are deemed to be useful. Further refinements to the brush settings are made along the way, followed be a variant renaming session if required. I will also use custom BBEdit scripts to convert the variants xml files to Painter 7 format, or the lowest Painter version in which the brush strokes can be replicated (I no longer convert below version 7 of Painter). If you would like to try a couple of the initial stage 'sand art' brush variants yourself, then I have created a zipped folder with 2 variant xml files which will work in Painter 7 and above. This is a 'no frills' download, so these are not in the usual brush library format with ReadMe instructions. To load the variants, the corresponding xml files must first be added individually to an existing brush category folder, prior to loading and selecting the respective brush library and category. Download sandart.zip (4 KB)  A Few Pointers to Working with the Above Variants Use stylus tilt and bearing to produce the darkened edge to the brush stroke. The Feature value influences the size of the particles as well as the width of the darkened edge region. A slower moving brush stroke produces a denser edge due to the pooling effect of the Watercolor Airbrush Dab Type. Try varying the angle of tilt and also stylus pressure on the tablet whilst painting the strokes. Due to the stylus tilt and bearing method of applying the media, it is advantageous to make full use of the Rotate Page Tool. Experiment with varying the Diffuse Amt (diffuse amount) setting in the Water section of the Brush Controls. Also experiment with the Flow setting in the Airbrush section of the Brush Controls. ...and most importantly, have fun :)    Posted Oct 03 2007, 07:21 AM by David Gell with no comments Filed under: brushes