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Neglected jewels


Erik

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This is a quick introduction to some neglected filters in PS. Thry them out and have fun!

MEDIAN is a filter that averages the colours, pixel after pixel. It is used to remove noise. When you use it on clouds, your shapes will become more uniform than with Gaussian Blur. Visually, it gives a more molded effect.
It also creates edges instead of blurring them. So you can still use an unsharp mask after applying Median.

HIGH PASS is a filter that greys your image out where there are no edges to be found. The edges stay intact. It is very handy to accentuate edges, even more when used with a separate channel because some channels accentuate the edges by themselves already. It is also very handy before using the Threshold command.
Try this: duplicate your background image, apply HighPass to the duplicate and blend with HardLight. This is a great way to sharpen images.

MAXIMUM AND MINIMUM are filters that oppose eachother. MAXIMUM expands the light portions of an image, and MINIMUM the dark portions. The setting tells PS how many pixels you want to expand(maximum) or shrink (minimum) the lights. Both are incredibly handy on Alpha channels and masks.
 
This illustrates the effect of the Median filter. You can see how it gives a more moulded effect and how it creates more outlines as Gaussian Blur.
This becomes even more visible with the unsharp mask I applied afterwards to each image. (same settings of course)
of course all images started from the same clouds setting.
 
And this is the HighPass filter.
1/ The portrait as loaded in RGB
2/ Set to grayscale with the ChannelMixer (allows playing)
3/ Applying the HighPass filter. See the potential to create edges?
4/ With a tad of Median, then unsharp mask and finally some curves.

For the Poser and 3D people: this is a great way to make bumpmaps too... (try it out)
 
And this is the effect of Maximum and Minimum.
I chose for a black shape because that makes it more difficult to grasp and that way it'll be more clear afterwards.
 
exellent Erik! Your right those filters are often overlooked. I have been using the minimum/maximum more and more recently on my alpha work!

Cool stuff :)
 
wow, thanks Erik ... I'm glad I started this :D

More stuff to make my head hurt. Wheee! <grin>

Oh, if you're interested in seeing the background that I came up with, after much messing around, go to www.faerydance.com ... it's up there OK I'll stop the shameless plug here <grin> The site, we thik, will really be killer once we get it done, but honestly I'm not sure if we'll have it by June 1st like she wants it to be.



Anam
 

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