Pastel/Water Color Plugin - Updated 2008-02-18

[BoltBait]

OK, so I had this idea to create a pastel filter. What I evenually came up with looked fair on some images and poor on others. Well, I finally updated this effect and I think this is a winner!

Here is a "before & after" picture:

Anyway, here was my idea:

First, I normalize the Hue to reduce the number of overall colors--similar to a "cutout" effect. Then, I compress all of the Saturation (S) information from 15-100 into 15-50. This should lighten up all the colors to a nice pastel tone. Then, it compresses the Value (V) from 5-100 into 85-100. This should really get rid of all the dark colors. The only thing left to deal with was the near black pixels. Finally, I converted all of the near black pixels to a shade of gray.

If you like it, you can download the precompiled effect here: BoltBait's Plugin Pack

Enjoy.

[Gekko]

Hmm.. not a fan of this.

It does give out a unique look, but you cant really customize it. it just lightens your picture a lot. I dont find it is very pastelly or watercoloury. I mean, the effect it gives is ok, but the name suggests something else.

[BoltBait]

Well, what would you suggest, "Uglify"?

I know it sucks.

Help me out here, make a better one!

BTW, it is customizable, I just haven't put a UI on it.

You can see the codelab script here: http://boltbait.googlepages.com/pastel

[Gekko]

Well, what would you suggest, "Uglify"?

That could work!

I know it sucks.

It doesnt suck - it just isnt the OMG THIS IS TOTALLY AWSOME!!

Help me out here, make a better one!

I wish.

BTW, it is customizable, I just haven't put a UI on it.

You can see the codelab script here: http://boltbait.googlepages.com/pastel

[BoltBait]

It doesnt suck

Well, I disagree. Which is why I'm asking for help.

I tinkered with this thing for days and didn't get anything I liked. I just got so tired of looking at it that I posted it.

Hopefully, someone will write a better one so that I can learn from it.

I'll tell you something that does help, do a Oil Paint filter before this filter.

[RaveN]

Exactly, something that takes out all the middle colors and uses simpler ones before this would make this excellent, I suggest including that into it somehow and see how that goes..

[Gekko]

I'll tell you something that does help, do a Oil Paint filter before this filter.

You're right. It does work better with oil painting at first. It would be cool if you could incorporate it right into this, so both things happen at once.

[BoltBait]

I think my major problem is that I'm only looking at a single pixel.

Heh.

[entY8]

To create really realistic effects imitating drawing by hand, you'd probably also need to imitate brush strokes. I've just got no idea how to do that efficently :?

[NOX]

this could work with an original in the bottom layer, a double edge detect, one left, one right and inverted to give you an out line to pop in the middle pane,

[BoltBait]

NOX, I'm not really following you. Sorry.

Perhaps you could show a screenshot or something.

The only thing I've found that actually makes this DLL useful is to do an Oil Paint filter first. Then, it looks quite nice. Maybe I sould look into that fliter to see what it is doing. Is the source for that filter available in Codelab form?

[entY8]

i guess i get what nox is trying to say, since i thought of something similar somewhen: if you had the "edge detect" effect code at your hand you could find out which areas are to be seperated; then you could apply some sort of "brush lines" effect on the single areas, making the picture look as if drawn with a brush.

the "emboss" effect might even work better, when trying to determine the areas' bounds.

[Ghost_ARCHER]

For me, a simple minimum filter looks like a water color paint very much.

[BoltBait]

For me, a simple minimum filter looks like a water color paint very much.

What is that algorithm?

EDIT: Nevermind, I see that effect can be done using the Paint.NET Median blur. I was able to change the first picture into the second with a radius of 3 and a percentile of 10.

[Ghost_ARCHER]

replace the rgb (I think hsv's v is better) value with the minimum inside a 3*3 or 5*5 or 7*7 box. Run thru the image. Normal medium is used to get rid of spikes. I happened to see the effect of minimum looks like watercolor for me. it in fact do two things, reduces the number of colors in an area, and made the thin line wider, something like using a brush.

I see that effect can be done using the Paint.NET Median blur. I was able to change the first picture into the second with a radius of 3 and a percentile of 10.

Yeah, the median, the minimum and the maxium filters belong to the same group. The effect are all blurring. The median is logically more complex than a local minimum or maximum.

I would guess an erosion or expansion of morphologic operation would be useful after the first step. I think the watercolor should have something like that to be more real.

[dake]

Watercoloring is all about diffusion. The best paper I know on the subject is : http://www.otherthings.com/uw/watercolor/. A "cheap" watercolor effect can be achieved using Kuwahara blur : http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/plugins/kuwahara.html

[NinjaManDan21]

how do you activate Kuwahara blur? is it a plugin for paint.net? cause the page is very unspecific and it doesn't show in paint.net as an effect

[Ego Eram Reputo]

No it's not a plugin (as far as I know).

You could try these values out in the Convolution Filter plugin:

[/url]http://www.gutgames....ilter-in-C.aspx (Google is my friend - and yours too! )