cjmcguinness

In this tutorial you will be making something like this... I called the original piece 'Inside' as, to me, it looked like it could have been taken by a camera inside the human body. I posted this piece in the Pictorium recently (to a somewhat lukewarm response, which surprised me as I think it is one of the best pieces I've ever produced) and thought it worthy of a little tutorial, for those interested in how it was done (hamsterjam & Mastriani), and for those who may have missed it in the midst of the Pictorium maelstrom. You will need to download and install the Ed Harvey effect pack for this tutorial. Start with a reasonably large canvas, I'm using 1200 x 900 Create 5 new layers, so you have 6 layers in total. Steps 1 through 5 will be repeated on each of the 6 separate layers. I have experimented with flattening the image at specific points and applying the effects globally, but the finished product is much better if effects are applied to all layers separately. Starting on the Background layer, Effects > Render > Clouds :Clouds: : Scale 750, Roughness 0, Blend Mode: Normal. Repeat on layers 2 - 6. (Tip, quick way to repeat the effect is to click on the next layer and press CTRL+F). Go back to the Background layer, Effects > Render > Clouds: Scale 750, Roughness 0, Blend Mode: Difference. Repeat on layers 2 - 6. Starting from the top layer, Layer 6, press F4 to access the Layer Properties and change the Blend Mode to 'Lighten'. Move down the layers and repeat this on layers 5, 4, 3 & 2. (Tip, you can also access the Layer Properties by double-clicking on the layer). Starting from the Background Layer, Effects > Photo > Soften Portrait :SoftenPortrait: : Softness 10, Lighting 10, Warmth 20. As before, repeat this effect on layers 2 - 6. From the top (Layer 6), Effects > Distort > Crystalize: Size 8 (default), Quality 3. Repeat on layers 5 - Background (Crystalize is part of the Ed Harvey effects pack. You can play with the Size setting in this effect, depending on your canvas size; the bigger the canvas the higher number you can use. I set the quality at 3 for rendering speed, you can of course set this to the max if you don't mind the wait). We've now finished with individual layer effects, so press CTRL+F to flatten. Press CTRL+SHIFT+D to Duplicate the Background layer. On the top layer, Effects > Stylize > Relief (default settings). Change the Layer Blend mode of the top layer to 'Lighten', and flatten the image. The relief effect leaves a slightly nasty top and bottom edge to your image, so Layers > Rotate Zoom > Zoom 1.02 (Tip, click on the zoom slider control and use the up/down arrow keys to adjust the setting. You only want to move this up by 0.02, to get rid of the couple of pixels at the top and bottom of the image). Effects > Distort > Twist: Amount 20, Size 1.5, Quality 5. (You can, of course, adjust these settings to suit, but these are what I used and what I think produces the best effect). Finally, to colour the piece. When I first produced this effect the first thing that came to mind was that it resembled the a bodily interior, guts, intestines, if you will. For that reason I choose a real blood red colour (it is also where the name for the piece comes from). Adjustments > Hue & Saturation: Hue -30, Sat 150, Light -30. I would encourage you to experiment and adjust the settings at any stage to suit yourself (even different settings on each layer). Try different Cloud size, Different Blend Modes, Different Crystalize settings (or even a different Distort effect), different Twist settings and, of course, different colours. Please post your results and, if you use different setting and effects, post the details so other users can also try them out. I hope this tutorial will inspire you to take some of the steps demonstrated here and perhaps use them in different creative ways. Thanks -CJ

:shock: wow :shock: thats really nice Thanks, I'm quite proud of this myself - considering putting together a little tutorial if anyone's interested.

^ As usual, you can clickety-click the image to view and download the full 1600 x 960 version ^

Enter The Cortex: ^^ Clickety-Click to view and download the full size 1600 x 960 version ^^

hamsterjam, the userbars look pretty good - but, IMHO, the text on them is way to big, it should be a lot smaller. More like this... or this...

This is an excellent use of Polar Inversion Plus (if I'm not mistaken). Even Bolt Bait couldn't be upset if presented with these

SecurityWonks.net has a "add your listing here" link for each category. It looks like it would be Rick's responsibility to publish all the details of Paint.NET in the Graphic Apps / Editors category. Having had a quick look through the site it seems relatively new, as most of the categories are empty.

Given the amount of entries in this week's competition I would agree with Andrew D that we should probably vote for more than one entry - perhaps everyone could vote for their top 3 (in order). This would probably help settle any ties for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places.

Hmmm, strange. The link didn't work when I tried it earlier - but it's working fine now. :?

Mike, the link in your sig for Google Killer is incorrect. It should be... http://www.alpha.search.wiki.com/ You have an extra a at the end of wiki.

In addition to the new 'Remove Noise' effect, you should also try Surface Blur (part of Ed Harvey's effects pack). I managed to clean it up to this in only a few seconds.

It'll be up to CMD to call an end to the competition and open the voting. He usually compiles all the entries into the first thread, but this will take a while due to the larger number of entries than usual. I think the result of this will be interesting, due to the large number of entries there could be lots of ties with 2 or 3 votes each.

Oh My God, it is really really beautiful!! Thanks guys, glad you liked it.

I've finally gotten around to experimenting with creating glass (a-la Ash, et-al). This is my first serious attempt. ^^Clickety-click to view larger size and download the full 1600x960 version^^

The trick is with the Move Selection tool. There are two tools for moving thing around, the Move Selected Pixels tool will move what you have selected; it sounds like you are using this. Whereas, the Move Selection Tool just changes the position of the selected area; this is what you should be using. Make sure you are using the Move Selection Tool and not the Move Selected Pixels and you should be OK. -CJ

Well, I'm glad to see this week's competition seems to be very popular; some fantastic entries so far. No stock images were harmed in the making of this signature; thanks go to Ed Harvey for Polar Inversion + and Crystalize.

Nice tut. I didn't follow it to the letter - wanted to make my frame a wooden texture. The reflections are a good touch, especially the windows (using various bulges). Here's mine...

Absolutely! I created the 'Neon Spider' tut as an example of a different creative approach to using Polar Inversion - my hope, in choosing Polar Inversion as the theme for the next SOTW, is that entrants will be as creative as possible and show how the effect can be used in many different ways. -CJ

Wishing everyone on the Paint.NET forum all the very best for the forthcoming year. I hope you achieve all you desire in 2008. ^^ Clickety-click to download the full 1600x1200 desktop version ^^ -CJ

If you simply want to print the same image multiple times on one sheet, then the built in Windows Photo Printing Wizard (which PDN uses for image printing) can do this for you. Go to File > Print, then one you've selected your target printer you will be taken to the Layout Selection section. Scroll to the bottom and select "Wallet Prints". Below this there is an option to print the image multiple times ("Number of times to use each picture"), set this at 9, and wait a couple of seconds for the preview. This will lay out your image in 3x3 format on a single A4 page, with the image cropped and rotated to fit (so make sure that your image is in the correct proportions and aspect ratio to avoid cropping; namely 4:3 or 3:4). If you want to print multiple different images on one sheet in wallet layout, then you will have to use PDN to resize each image and position them on a correctly sized and proportioned background (21.0cm x 29.7cm - for A4, with each print image being 6cm x 8cm) I have attached a template that you can open in PDN and use to position your individual prints. Hope this helps. -CJ

You might want to take a look at my Gel 'Style' Browser Buttons tutorial.

The latest version reminds me an awful lot of the 'Gel Button's' from a tutorial I posted about 6 months ago...

Polar Inversion has been suggested many times before, and I have been a real advocate of this as I believe the effect is much maligned. Therefore, I'd like to see what the cream of the PDN users crop can really do with this effect - so my decision is the SOTW #13 will be 'Polar Inversion'. And, the timing is excellent as Ed Harvey has just released his v3.20 Effects Pack and this includes 'Polar Inversion Plus'. Let's get it on! -CJ

Wow, thanks to all who voted for for me; I'm flattered. Good job everyone, I really liked olav.k.m's sig (got my vote), one of my first ideas was to try and do a snowman made of stars (like a snowman constellation). So, without further ado let's hasten to the discussion thread and get things moving on SOTW #13 (or should it be SOTF Sig Of The Fortnight?). -CJ

I was thinking , how can same size create another in another? Well spotted, 10 out of 10 for observation. (That's what I get for trying to be lazy and copying/pasting text). Thanks for pointing this out, I'll edit the tutorial accordingly. -CJ