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Hello AndrewDavid! Glad null54 terrific update worked for you too! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hello MJW! "What this plugin does appears to be reasonably simple, but I'm not certain exactly what it does." The advantage, for me, that NormalMapPlus has over other normal map plugins for Paint.net is that it's a very simple tool to create normals from the diffuse texture in one step. Simply using the plugin on a diffuse texture can produce a basic normal. Though in practice you tend to add more detail by hand. "What's used as the effect input image? Is it it a grayscale image where brightness represents height" Darker coulours represent depth & lighter colours represent height. Black being deepest & white the highest. "My question is: in actual use, what is the source image, and what is the desired output? " I can explain my basic process of using NormalMapPlus. Firstly I'd run NormalMapPlus on the main texture, also called the diffuse texture, as the basis for the normal map. Black & white or colour seems to make no difference. Ending up with a basic normal map like: Then I'd normally add more detail by making a new layer above the diffuse & hand drawing with white the highlights that are raised & with black for bits that are deeper, like: Then I run NormalMapPlus on that & add it as a new Overlay layer to the first normal image created. Multiple layers can be added to increase the height & depth as required. I used to adjust the X,Y & Z sliders when using NormalMapPlus to increase the intensity of the heights created but I moved to adding extra overlay layers instead as a more controllable method. So I now normally just use the default slider settings. The only thing needed after this normal is made in Paint.net is to add a detailed Alpha layer, since they cannot be added by Paint.net "in house". The detailed aplha layer is added to normal maps for games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas & Skyrim & controls specularity in game (shininess). It's basically a B&W version of the main texture with black areas being dullest & white areas being shiniest & grey levels in between. I use the excellent tiny program DXTBmp to combine the finished normal & a Bitmap B&W for its Alpha layer. While it would be handy to be able to add the Alpha layer within Paint.net, using DXTBmp to do it is only a matter of seconds. Resulting in game effect seen here: The squarish bumps on the face of the drum appear raised, as they should, due to the normal map but in reality the mesh is completely flat there. Saves on poly count of the model & is actually a better effect. It should be noted that @null54 update seems to have fixed the issue with running with Net Framework 4.7. Hope this gives you some insight!

Wonderful picture...'Sons of the Muses' @LionsDragon! You are getting better and better! I'm so happy for you.

Thank you, Prensa. That was a very helpful description. I'll have think about what would be the best solution, though I have some ideas.

@MJW Normal maps are computed from a 3D mesh. This is an approximation method using edge detection. The purple shade is the neutral color for a normal map with RGB values 128, 128, 255 since the RGB channels correspond to XYZ offsets for the computed lighting. Sobel edge detection and blurring is a typical solution to faking a normal map. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mapping

Magisterially canvassy!

Thanks @lynxster4! I used Texture maker, Polar transformation and Sharpen +. I like the motifs, they look like Maya or Inca drawings.

"Sons of the Muses" David Bowie, David Lynch, David Byrne in front of the Temple of the Muses at the Acropolis. All digitally painted in PDN using outlines from photographs.

@lynxster4, I showed these to my husband, and he declared them, "Magisterial!"

Another goody! Thanks MadJik.

Hi @MadJik! Thank you so much.

You can use "Rotate and zoom" to give the text an angle. I added another layer with bigger text and changed the mode to additive.

Don't go blinding us all with science, a simple answer would suffice! Autumn Gfx, paint.net is very frugal with memory and should work fine, depending on the size of image you wish to manipulate.

Clearly you prefer to use Paint over paint.net, so just use Paint. Paint.net is different, by design. You have eccentric tastes; as such, you will find few here (if any) that agree with you.

Irfanview supports opening .pdn files if you install the plugins pack. Then you can use the very powerful bulk converter to process the images.

Just for fun and because this topic is interesting....

One more try :

I saw this thread the other day and got carried away doing a few tests with TR's Cloud Control (a bit slow on my PC but that's because the poor machine is so miserably old ) and TR's Third Dimension, plus a few clouds here and there painted with CustomBrushesMini with a soft brush. I've used the clouds plugin mentioned above, but mostly when I need skies with separated clouds in a scene viewed from the ground. I've used TR's Third Dimension to create overcast skies with chunks of clouds viewed from above, like from an aircraft for example, in which case I set the Squash and Stretch slider to around 100 or higher, and the map I use is basically an image containing one render of the clouds effect at default values (the built-in clouds effect I mean). TR's Cloud Control renders somewhat fragmented clouds depending on the settings used, but the good thing about it is that you can apply it to irregular selections, which is great for rendering mushroom clouds like in the first picture below (tweaking the colors appropriately can make it resemble a nuclear explosion or any kind of explosion that produces a mushroom cloud). Whatever effect we use, it's also necessary to play around with colors, shades, blending modes, and layer opacities until getting something decent. I'm aware the images that follow need more tweaking, but I think they don't look bad as a starting point for artworks done completely in PdN (the aircraft are also my creations, please excuse their imperfections ). Please, click on thumbnails for larger views: