Jump to content

Creating Malachite?


Marilynx

Recommended Posts

In my ongoing series of Talismans, I need some malachite cabochons.

 

("Malachite" in search and "Images") It's a gorgeous deep green stone with streaks of lighter green or turquoise.

 

I tried doing Noise with emerald and turquoise and then motion blur but that was too fine a grain -- colors were not distinct enough and were too small.

 

I tried a gradient with the two colors, and that had possibilities, but was not the stone.

 

I tried an emerald background with turquoise streaks, and then blurring it.

 

Any thoughts on how to do this?

Edited by Marilynx
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Green & Turquoise Clouds then Dents. Play with the sliders until you get a look the you like. You could also take a tiny portion of the results, blur the edges & put it over a larger green shape to get a smoother looking more realistic look. Layers will probably bee your friend here.

THiGVp.png

Knowledge is no burden to carry.

 

April Jones, 2012

 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Green & Turquoise Clouds then Dents. Play with the sliders until you get a look the you like. You could also take a tiny portion of the results, blur the edges & put it over a larger green shape to get a smoother looking more realistic look. Layers will probably bee your friend here.

 

Layers are emphatically a friend. Dents are interesting. I'd played with them a little on something else, but hadn't thought of them in conjunction with this. The chief problem is that it's not possible to control the amount of a given color in the clouds. There's too much turquoise.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My try but it is so difficult to get those dark green colors.

 

Ooh, I like that -- how did you get there?!

 

You are sooo right about it being difficult to get the rich, true "emerald" greens!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Try duplicating the image of the stone and then use a blending mode on the top one and adjust the slider. Experiment with different modes and you might get what you are looking for.   ;)

 

                                                              http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/21233-skullbonz-art-gallery

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, here's my shot at this, taking BarbieQ25's suggestions into consideration. (And being challenged by Eli's version!)

 

In particular, the idea of trimming a section out of the resulting Effects => Render => Clouds, and Effects => Distort => Dents for my stone.

 

The first time I tried it, I couldn't fill my canvas without having overlaps that looked weird. So, I made a very large canvas (3000 x 3000) at 300 dpi, and did the Render => Clouds, and Distort => Dents with dark green (008000) and turquoise (00FAC9).

 

I trimmed out a section that I like and went back to my smaller canvas (1200 x 1200 @ 96 dpi) and pasted it in. Only took a little bit of stretching to get it to fill the canvas with no overlaps. Then I duplicated it and rotated it from horizontal lines to vertical lines (and again did a little stretching to fill the canvas).

 

Then I used Effects => Render => Shape3D to create the stone on each of the two layers. The horizontal versus vertical striping gave very different effects.

 

MalachiteCabochon-H.jpg

 

MalachiteCabochon.jpg

Edited by Marilynx
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I started with Clouds > Contour > Gaussian Blur > Dents

 

I added a layer with a green/blue color and changed the mode to multiply. 

 

Merged the layers

 

Used the heart shape to cut a heart shape.

 

Used Bevel Object on the heart and duplicated the layer.

 

Finally, on the lower layer  used Trail... to give it a 3D aspect.

 

I finished with a spark made with Highlight...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I started with Clouds > Contour > Gaussian Blur > Dents

 

I added a layer with a green/blue color and changed the mode to multiply. 

 

Merged the layers

 

Used the heart shape to cut a heart shape.

 

Used Bevel Object on the heart and duplicated the layer.

 

Finally, on the lower layer  used Trail... to give it a 3D aspect.

 

I finished with a spark made with Highlight...

 

Oh, neat.... I must go and try that!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To get the banding, I suggest generating smooth clouds then using the old Adjustment>Curves trick of making a sine-like response curve, as is done to make reflecting metal. To  make the linear banding, it might be useful to select a tall, thin rectangular area and stretch it horizontally with Move Selected Pixels, the way wood-grain textures are produced.

 

Marilynx, I like those pictures you made, but I think there needs to be more contrast in the color of the bands. Also, you might run Effects>Objects>AA's Assistant to smooth the edges. They would probably look more like jewels if the specular highlights were brighter. The highlight should be white, not green, but perhaps the greenish look is due to their not being bright enough.

Edited by MJW
Link to comment
Share on other sites

To get the banding, I suggest generating smooth clouds then using the old Adjustment>Curves trick of making a sine-like response curve, as is done to make reflecting metal. To  make the linear banding, it might be useful to select a tall, thin rectangular area and stretch it horizontally with Move Selected Pixels, the way wood-grain textures are produced.

 

Marilynx, I like those pictures you made, but I think there needs to be more contrast in the color of the bands. Also, you might run Effects>Objects>AA's Assistant to smooth the edges. They would probably look more like jewels if the specular highlights were brighter. The highlight should be white, not green, but perhaps the greenish look is due to their not being bright enough.

 

Yes, I was looking at the larger images as they posted on here (they're smallish on my laptop) and thinking I needed to AA or feather the edges.

 

I deliberately dimmed the highlight on this -- it's actually white, just dimmed -- because the brighter light didn't look right to me. (I've been sitting here looking at an actual malachite cabochon in different lights). The bright highlight just didn't give the particular effect that I wanted.

 

Keep in mind that these aren't "jewels" as such. Malachite is a copper based mineral.

 

I would be very interested in a tutorial on the uses of Curves. It pops up in so many tutorials, and I like the effects obtained by following the directions in them. But I don't understand what Curves DOES in order to create my own settings. That's one reason it did not occur to me to use Curves on this particular project. But I may go back and tinker with it. I made it a point to keep copies of all my layers so I could go back and try other techniques on them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...