Many of these filters are added to an image using the Filter Gallery, a tool that allows you to preview the filter effect, change the filter settings, and add multiple filters at once..
Trang 1Applying Filters
IN THIS CHAPTER
Artistic filters The Filter Gallery Smart Filters Custom filters
Most of the filters in Photoshop are just for fun They don’t correct
lighting or color, take out unwanted elements, or even change your photo into a black and white image—all fixes that are com-mon to a photo correction workflow Instead, they add fun, artistic elements
to your photo, making it look like a watercolor painting, a stained-glass
win-dow, or an image embossed into metal
Many of these filters are added to an image using the Filter Gallery, a tool
that allows you to preview the filter effect, change the filter settings, and add
multiple filters at once Other filters must be added using the Filter menu
Most of the filters can be added as Smart Filters that are non-destructive and
editable Understanding Smart Filters and how they work gives you the
flexi-bility to add multiple filters, change the order they are applied, edit their
set-tings, create a blending option for the filter (an option you don’t have in any
other way), disable their effects, or delete them
In this chapter, I focus on the fun, artistic filters as I show you how to use
these powerful tools to add them to an image and modify their effects With
dozens of creative filters that can be combined, modified, and customized,
the possibilities are endless
Trang 2A Comprehensive Look at Artistic Effects Filters
Most of the filters create artistic effects; they take your image and change it in a way that enhances its artistic value, at least for the project you are working on These filters take a photograph and make it look like everything from a painting to a rubber stamp These filters are divided into cate-gories based on their relative properties and are found in the Filter menu This is a comprehensive list of the artistic effects filters and what they do
Cross-Ref
This list doesn’t include the corrective filters—namely the Sharpen, Blur, Noise, and Lens Correction filters,
which are covered in Chapter 14 Liquify is covered in Chapter 19 The Video filters are covered in Chapter 26
Vanishing Point is covered in Chapter 24 n
Artistic
These filters replicate effects that are usually achieved by hand rather than digitally Although they don’t always do a realistic job of this, they sure give freehand-challenged artists like me options for creating drawing effects All these options are available in the Filter Gallery:
l Colored Pencil: This filter makes your image look as if the hard edges have been sketched
using a colored pencil This effect uses your background color as the color of the paper, so
if your background is the default, you may get an image that is more gray than colorful
Change it to white or any other color to change the look
l Cutout: Like a mosaic made from cut paper, this effect makes your image look as if it has
been constructed of roughly cut paper
l Dry Brush: This filter makes your image look as if it was painted using a dry brush
tech-nique This filter is subtle, although it reduces the colors in your image
l Film Grain: This filter adds a grainy look to your image by blending the shadows
and midtones
l Fresco: This filter creates a rough image that mimics coarsely applied paint
l Neon Glow: This filter uses your foreground color and mixes it with a specified glow
color to create a glow and soften your image
l Paint Daubs: This filter lets you choose from several brushes to create a painting from
your image The brush used and the settings applied can make your image range from a slightly softer look to an impressionistic look
l Palette Knife: This filter smoothes your image and introduces texture that simulates the
canvas underneath You can see an example of the Palette Knife effect in Figure 20.1
l Plastic Wrap: This filter makes your image look as if it’s been embossed and shrink-wrapped.
Trang 3FIGURE 20.1
The Palette Knife softens this image and gives it an impressionistic feel
l Poster Edges: This filter introduces banding in your image by significantly reducing the
colors and creates black strokes along the harder edges of your image
l Rough Pastels: This filter simulates a drawing made with pastel chalk You have lots of
control over the texture applied to your image in this filter, with several textures to choose from and settings that increase the dimension and light of the texture chosen
l Smudge Stick: This filter softens an image by reducing the colors and smudging them
l Sponge: This filter introduces regular patches of missing color, as if the painting had been
sponged while it was still wet
l Underpainting: This is another filter primarily for adding texture, although you can make
a significant difference to the look by adjusting the brush strokes as well It simulates painting your image over a textured background (the underpainting) and then reapplying the image over the top
l Watercolor: This filter simulates your image being painted with watercolors, giving it a
soft, muted look You can add contrast by increasing the shadow intensity
Trang 4Brush Strokes
The Brush Strokes filters make your image look different by changing the way the brush strokes are applied to it Just like the Artistic effects, these effects are meant to mimic fine art:
l Accented Edges: This filter adds highlights or shadows to the edges of your image,
accentuating them and giving your image ultra-sharp edges while smoothing out the other areas
l Angled Strokes: This filter creates the impression that your image is painted using
diago-nal strokes The lighter strokes are painted in a different direction than the darker strokes, creating a crosshatched appearance in areas of high contrast
l Crosshatch: This filter adds a crosshatch texture to your image This effect creates a
cleaner look than the angled strokes because the crosshatches are kept within the bounds
of the colors contained in your image
l Dark Strokes: This effect creates more detail and darkness in the dark areas of your image
because it creates short, tight strokes in those areas It also softens the lighter areas in your image by using long, white strokes
l Ink Outlines: This filter simulates a picture drawn with ink, giving your image a
con-trasty, textured look You can see an image before and after Ink Outlines has been applied
to it in Figure 20.2
FIGURE 20.2
Ink Outlines give this image a hard, contrasty, look
l Spatter: This filter gives your image the look of a painting that was created using a spatter
airbrush, including lots of splotches and texture
l Sprayed Strokes: This effect is very subtle, especially if your image is high resolution It
simulates the effect of having your image painted by making strokes with a spray brush
You can determine which direction you want the strokes to run
l Sumi-e: In true Japanese style, the Sumi-e effect simulates a painting on rice paper using a
heavily saturated brush The end result is a rich painting with deep shadows
Trang 5The Distort filters change the way your image looks by reshaping it in different ways Most of these filters are not available in the Filter Gallery simply because the dialog boxes have more intensive settings than the other filters You can find the Diffuse Glow, Glass, and Ocean Ripple filters in the Filter Gallery Here’s what the Distort filters do:
l Diffuse Glow: This filter is great for creating the effect of an image taken with a soft
diffusion filter popular with portrait and wedding photography The effect is a soft, ethereal look
l Displace: For this filter, you need an image to specify as a displacement map Any PSD
will do The Displace filter use the hard edges in the image specified to warp your original image around, as shown in Figure 20.3 Although I used a simple shape in this figure, you should try using another image just for fun The results are interesting
FIGURE 20.3
The river plus the footprint creates the image displacement shown
l Glass: You can make your image look as if it’s being viewed through glass with this filter
Several settings simulate all different types of glass
l Ocean Ripple: This filter gives your image the illusion that it is being viewed through water.
l Pinch: A mini-warp or liquify, this filter creates only one kind of distortion—a pinch to
the center of your image that either pinches it in or bubbles it out
l Polar Coordinates: The idea behind this very interesting-looking filter is that after it has
been applied, you can place the resulting image in a mirrored cylinder to create a cylinder anamorphosis When you look into the cylinder, the image appears not only undistorted
Trang 6FIGURE 20.4
The Polar Coordinates distortion
Note
For some very interesting information on the cylinder anamorphosis art form, look up anamorphosis on
Wikipedia n
l Ripple: Like disturbing water in the middle of a pond, you can create ripples in your
image using this filter
l Shear: This filter allows you to distort your image using a curve.
l Spherize: This filter wraps an image around a sphere, giving it a 3D effect.
l Twirl: This filter twists an image around a point in the center of your image You can
choose how far to twist and in what direction
l Wave: Just as if the surface of your image were the surface of a swimming pool, you can
create waves in it with several controls that let you customize a specific look The results are similar to the Ripple filter, but you have much more control over the results using the wave settings
l ZigZag: This filter creates zigzag waves in an image starting in the center and gradually
decreasing as the effect moves outward
Pixelate
The Pixelate filters are filters that create different types of pixilation in your file The dialog boxes are simple, focusing on the size of the pixilation Some of the filters, such as the Fragment filter, don’t have a dialog box at all None of these filters are in the Filter Gallery Here’s what you can expect from the Pixelate filters:
Trang 7l Color Halftone: This filter takes each color channel, divides it into rectangles, and
changes the rectangles into circles The effect is similar to watching an old television set where the colored pixels were easy to pick out, except the pixels are round in this case
l Crystallize: This filter combines several adjoining pixels together to create hard-edge
polygon shapes reminiscent of crystal formations
l Facet: This filter combines pixels in the same area to soften the look of the image.
l Fragment: This filter adds texture to an image by averaging adjoining pixels and then
off-setting them from one another The Facet and Fragment filters don’t have dialog boxes but work with a set number of pixels This means that if your images are high resolution, you probably won’t see a distinct difference when using either one of these filters
l Mezzotint: This filter can create a very cool color effect by creating strokes that are
ran-domly assigned to be black, white, or a fully saturated color The effect is an almost Art Deco effect that can really make your image pop Although the resulting image is distinctly uninspiring in grayscale, you can see the dialog box in Figure 20.5
l Mosaic: This filter makes your image look as if it were created from square tiles of pixels
You can determine the number of pixels that are grouped into each tile, which makes it possible to create a visible effect with a high-resolution image
l Pointillize: With this filter, you can turn your image into a painting that looks like it
could have been created by George Seurat This filter creates solid color points throughout your image
FIGURE 20.5
The Mezzotint dialog box gives you several stroke options
Trang 8Render
The Render filters range from the simple Clouds filter that creates clouds from the foreground and background colors without any input from the user, to creating a Lighting Effects filter that can require detailed input These filters are not in the Filter Gallery
l Clouds: This filter uses the foreground and background colors in a blend that resembles
blotches more than clouds You want to create a new layer on which to create the clouds, because the effect replaces anything that was on the layer before the clouds were rendered
l Difference Clouds: This filter creates clouds using the foreground and background colors
just like the Clouds filter and then blends them with the existing pixels using the Difference Blend mode This filter can be applied multiple times for a different effect each time
l Fibers: This filter creates streaks of color from the foreground and background colors that
intermix to resemble fibers This filter also replaces the pixels on the selected layer
Tip
Not only can filters be added on top of one another to create unique effects, filters such as clouds and fibers,
which can be placed on their own layer, can be used with the Blend modes to create unique effects on the
lay-ers beneath them n
l Lens Flare: This filter does a pretty good job of creating a realistic lens flare in your
image You can choose one of several flares and place it anywhere in your image
l Lighting Effects: This filter adds unlimited lighting effects to your image to create
dra-matic results You can create several lights, place them anywhere in your image, and change their properties so they resemble different types of light from spotlights to gel lights Several presets are previewed for you in Figure 20.6 You also can create your own lighting effects and save them as additional presets
FIGURE 20.6
These presets, among others, can be used to create light in your image
Five lights up Soft omni
Circle of light (modified)