Cross-Processing
Some little words to say … (you can probably ignore it)
Hi, I’m Sagantor, a grammar school pupil and hobby graphic artist. For a long time I have been collecting experiences especially in the textures-area for computer games, I designed in 2D and later in level design for modifications for the gamebryo-engine. Paint.net is a very strong graphic program in my opinion … since the last 4 months I have been done all my new textures with it and must say that it’s a really good alternative to expensive applications like photoshop (and not so confusing like gimp ). With PND I found many new interesting aspects of graphic design. It wasn't the boring repetitive: go outside … make some pics from the ground with my digital cam … connect camera with the PC … make photos seamless, chance ambient, find proper lighting etc. It was the creative design aspect and I hope you enjoy my tutorial about the Cross-Process.
What is Cross-Processing?
In “Cross-Processing” films are developed with the wrong chemicals what proves a unique effect. For more information take a look at this link
And no, you don’t need to buy a new cam and chemicals do to that, we try to fake this process with some image adjustments.
Plugins you need!
Sharpen +
Gradient Blur
Hm, can we start now?
No! Hey … stop ...why not? We can start, but before we open Paint.net we should search an image we can change. Try to find something that isn’t extremely dark. You can use every pic you want. Landscapes, persons or one from your own huge/little gallery… it's your choice.
You can take a look at the stock area of deviant.art, too.
And now?
Jep, open your image with Paint.net. In this tutorial I’ll use one of SelkeySayNothing. You can download it here
Start
At first we want to sharpen our image a little bit. Go to Effects/Photo/Sharpen + and set the values like mine. If your image is already super-high-extreme sharp you should use your own values.
(His values were: Amount 50, Radius 5, Threshold 0, Bright Borders 100, Dark Borders 100)
Now go to Adjustments/Curves/Luminosity …
It’s time for the Gradient Blur. You can find it under Effects/Blurs/Gradient Blur. If you use a photo of someone, place the center point in the face of the person. With other images: Place it on the main-object of your pic. Try to find a nice fix-point.
(His values were: X,Y offset: -0.29 and -0.65, Blur amount 10, Unblurred Distance 600, Blurred Distance 200, Blur shape: Circle/Ellipse. Distance mode, Invert, Show, all unchecked)
Create a new Layer :AddNewLayer: , set your foreground color to black and your secondary color to a transparency alpha of 0.
Press Shift+G :LinearGradient: and darken the 4 edges of the image a little bit with the gradient tool. After that, give this layer the opacity of 200.
(His values were Normal blend mode, 200 opacity.)
Merge the layer down and go to Adjustments/Curves again. Change mode to RGB. Change your Curves like this …
RED
GREEN
BLUE
And you should end up with something like this ...
AFTER ______________________________ BEFORE
Hope you like it!
This Effect looks great on some of my other works …
Please comment, rate, ask questions if you want or leave your opinion about that here. And yeah, I would be glad if you could show your own works with the Cross-Processing-Method!
