hauksdottir opened this issue on Jul 22, 2007 · 10 posts
hauksdottir posted Sun, 22 July 2007 at 6:06 AM
Filters and layer styles and blending modes are a lot of fun to play with. When I stumble over something neat, I try to remember the effect. Like a wizard with a grimoire or a chef with a recipe file, it helps to make a few notes of surprising successes or disasters to be avoided.
It also helps to create duplicate layers. Not only does this preserve your image, but you can use blending modes rather than simply "fade" the effect. Selective blending gives more control over various factors. Layers can vary in opacity as well.
Many of the filters are workhorses. For example, I use "render > clouds" as a base for glass or parchment or anything but clouds. But... when to use "artistic > plastic wrap" or "distort > spherize" or "stylize > glowing edges"? Sometimes nothing else will yield the desired effect... and if you want non-linear lines, they might as well glow in the dark, too!
I boosted the contrast a bit more, and tried glowing edges at various strengths, degrees of smoothness, and line width.
I'm recreating something I did many moons ago, but this is close enough for the tutorial. Besides illuminating any edges based upon threshold numbers, this filter also changes the colors. It can get quite wild, but this has some pretty blues and golds. The pink will need to go, however.
The composition needs tweaking. The butterfly is missing part of a wing, and that horizontal brick is far too regular and distracting.