![]() ![]() While the default preview shows the entire photo-which I prefer initially-you can change the preview size by clicking on the magnifying glass icon in the menu bar at the bottom of the window, then click within your photo’s preview to enlarge it, or alt/option click to shrink it. Note that for Impasto (thick paint), the Background tab (#5) gives you the opportunity to vary overall brush size, the degree of photorealism (how real or abstract your final artwork looks), brush stroke curvature, stroke length, paint thickness, color variation and brush style. ![]() Alien Skin makes it easy to fine tune the effects to suit your final output size, with the tabs and their associated controls seen at the top right of the Snap Art 3 window (#3). Brush strokes and textures that are scarcely visible at 5x7” can be dramatic and pronounced at 8x10”. I strongly suggest that you preview your art effect at the size you plan to print it or display it onscreen, as size really matters here. ![]() Of course this time will depend on the type of original (how detailed it is), file size, your computer’s horsepower and the effect you’ve chosen. psd file usually took less than 5 seconds. Once I tweaked each effect and clicked OK at the lower right, rendering the final. Rendering the preview usually took less than 2 seconds. For the examples here, I began with 300 ppi native Photoshop. The second item, Favorites, is a selection of one or two top effects in each style, a great place to start exploring the program’s possibilities.įrom the Favorites menu, I chose Impasto (thick paint). At the upper left, below a thumbnail of your original photo, is the Factory Settings list of the styles and variations available to you, (#4). There’s a large preview of your image with the effect applied in the center. I opened my shot of a brass lion’s head door knocker (#2) in Photoshop CS5, and selected Filter>Alien Skin>Snap Art 3 to bring up the window (#3). Finally, SA3 takes advantage of multi-processors and multi-core CPU’s, improving processing speed on computers with these chips. There are hundreds of presets in version 3 and users can create and save even more. SA3 simulates details down to individual bristles on curved strokes and interaction between the brush and canvas texture. ![]() Real world art techniques are carefully emulated by SA3, such as multiple layers of varying stroke size and enhancement of important edges from the original photo. The hard work of finding edges and drawing thousands of brush strokes is handled automatically by SA3’s rendering engine. SA3 can render most of a painting abstractly while maintaining detail in critical areas. With substantially more control than in version 2, you decide where detail is retained, and vary the extent of the realism. Version 2 had focus regions, but with version 3, you simply add a detail mask from within SA3 and brush in the broad outlines of the areas where you want to show more realistic detail, such as a face. The most important new feature, in my view, is the ability to selectively mask portions of the photo to preserve detail. Snap Art version 3 adds a number of enhancements to the first two iterations of the program including more refined stroke placement, making the resulting art more natural and accurate. If not, delve into the tabs and submenus to tweak and vary the look until you have completed your masterpiece. Chose one of these and a large preview opens as SA3 applies the effect. You’ll be presented with 11 art media styles to choose from: Color Pencil, Comics, Crayon (new), Impasto (thick textured paint), Oil Paint, Pastel, Pen and Ink, Pencil Sketch, Pointillism (inspired by Impressionist painting), Stylize (this creates a posterized or silkscreen look) and Watercolor. In Photoshop, open a photo and choose Filter>Alien Skin>Snap Art 3. Whether you work on Windows or Mac, SA3 couldn’t be more straightforward. Since Snap Art 3 is a plug-in, in order to use it you must have Photoshop, Lightroom, or Elements to run it (see the list at the end of this article). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |