Using Filters PCPhotoshop CS4 QuickStepsKnow Your PC QuickSteps Getting to in Software

Creating Code 3/9 in Software Using Filters PCPhotoshop CS4 QuickStepsKnow Your PC QuickSteps Getting to

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Making a photograph look like a handillustrated cartoon printed in the Sunday funnies requires the use of two filters:

The best filter to make a line drawing from a photograph is Sketch | Photocopy, although occasionally you can use the Threshold Adjustment layer with success Pixelate | Color Halftone does a splendid job of making solid colors into coarse, halftone screened image areas, completing the illusion

Figure 10-5: Some of the Artistic filters can be used to reduce original image details and make a portrait more flattering to the subject

To make a really good cartoon from a photo, the photo itself should be cartoonish, as is the case with the example image here To make a photo into a cartoon:

is black and the Set Background color swatch is white on the Tools panel Photocopy uses the Tools panel color swatches

2 Click Filter | Filter Gallery, and then click Photocopy in the Sketch folder 3 Drag the Detail slider, a contrast control, to about 11 for good black and white balance 4 Drag the Darkness slider, which controls brightness, to 48 for the best-looking ink

sketch Ease up on both Detail and Darkness with photos that have a lot of shadows and contrast In Figure 10-6, you can see that the photograph is flatly lit, providing a lot of edge detail for the filter Click OK to apply the filter

6 Click the down arrow on the Layers panel and then click Multiply blend mode 7 Click the Create A New Layer icon on the Layers panel; this will be the layer for

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When choosing colors you eventually want to filter using Color Halftone, avoid pure cyan, magenta, and yellow These colors are used for simulating the halftone screen, and therefore, as pure component colors, won t produce halftone dots Instead, choose pastel shades of greens,

Figure 10-7: Color in the areas below the Photocopy filtered layer to prep the layer for the Color Halftone filter

the strip With the Brush tool chosen, click a flesh tone on the Swatches panel and paint on the bottom layer in the area corresponding to flesh areas on the top layer

filtered) layer is in Multiply blend mode, your view of your work is completely unobstructed, as shown in Figure 10-7

in the Max Radius field for example, use 6 for images that are about 4MB in file size Click OK to apply the filter

Figure 10-8: Use two or more filters in succession to make unique, stylized interpretations of your photographs

working with the Type tool Figure 10-8 shows a finished cartoon panel The image can be flattened now, or you can click File | Save As, and save a copy to a file format such as JPG that you can e-mail to the undeserving subject!

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The most common blurring filters to use in everyday work are Blur, Blur More, and Gaussian Blur on the Filter | Blur menu (see Figure 10-9):

If your image is less than 1MB in file size, and you need to slightly unfocus an image area, plain Blur is your ticket Blur More performs four times the strength of the Blur filter; both filters create greater similarity between neighboring color pixels Gaussian Blur is used for extremely intense blurring effects Unlike Blur and Blur More, Gaussian Blur uses a weighted distribution curve to reassign pixel color values Think of a bell-shaped curve Gaussian blur produces an effect that is most intense at the center (of the bell) and tapers off, in a curve, to the outskirts of the bell shape