Using Photoshop's Sine Shear filter in paint.net

[ReMake]

This information can be useful to those who use Photoshop filters in their work in paint.net .

 

I've been looking for an alternative to the Photoshop's Shear filter for a long time, until I found the Shift at Wave filter by MuRa.

 

In my opinion, the User Interface of filters created in Filter Factory is not very practical to use. The only controls are sliders that have a range of values from 0 to 255. Often these numbers are relative if the slider range is provided in the effect code from 0 to 100 or from -128 to 128, and the displayed range is from 0 to 255. Another significant disadvantage of such filters is that the preview window does not always really display the changes made to the image.

 

Nevertheless, I liked the idea of sinusoidal distortion of the image using amplitude modulation (harmonics) and I created my own filter based on the MuRa's filter called Sine Shear.

 

 

rmSineShear.zip

 

You can apply this filter using the PSFilterPdn plugin by @null54.

 

Direction - sets the direction of distortion (Vertical or Horizontal).

Inverse Direction - changes the direction of distortion to the opposite.

Frequency - the number of repetitions of the sinusoid.

Amplitude:

1st Harmonic. 2nd Harmonic, 4th Harmonic - the amplitude of the 1st (base), 2nd and 4th harmonics of the frequency.

Pashe 1, Pashe 2, Pashe 4 - the shift of the amplitudes of the 1st, 2nd and 4th harmonics of the frequency (range from 0 to 360°), respectively .

Reset - returns the values of the sliders to the default values (does not affect the drop-down list and checkbox).

 

To better understand how this filter works, create an image with two perpendicular lines, as shown below.

 

Run the filter (Effects -> 8bf Filter -> Render -> Sine Shear). The filter preview window will display a sinusoid view with default settings. Select the Horizontal Direction.

 

Set the Amplitude of the 1st Harmonic to 150 and its Phase to 90.

 

Now set the Amplitude of the 4th Harmonic to 25 and its Phase to 160

 

and you will see how the curve has changed.

 

Add a second harmonic to the curve by setting the 2nd Harmonic to 75 and its Phase to 150  and check the Inverse Direction checkbox.

 

Now you will have an idea of what your distorted image will look like. By changing the values of the frequency, amplitude and phase of its harmonics, you can get interesting and unexpected results.

 

Of course, this filter is not a full-fledged replacement for the Photoshop Shear filter, but you can get the most similar results.

 

Tip: If you repeat Photoshop tutorials in paint.net, which describe the using of the Shear filter, use the image with straight lines shown above in advance to evaluate the distortion of the image you are working on.

 

I hope this filter will be useful for you and you will share your works using this filter.

Edited October 6, 2022 by ReMake
Minor UI change

[lynxster4]

Nice @ReMake  Thank you!  😊

[Maximilian]

Looks very interesting and promising  🙂👍

[ReMake]

Minor UI change. Please update this filter again.