Section 10.3. Using the Filter Gallery


10.3. Using the Filter Gallery

Photoshop comes with a host of special effects filters. With the advent of the Filter Gallery in Photoshop 7, there are actually an infinite number. That's because the Filter Gallery will allow you to combine many of the Photoshop filters in any combination of intensity and blend mode. Figure 10-3 shows the original image and one at the end of the routine that follows.

Figure 10-3. The figure on the right shows an effect that is the result of applying several filters at once.

  1. After you have a merged and flattened layer that is a copy of all the work you've done up to this point, select that layer and duplicate it by dragging it onto the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.

  2. Choose FiltersFilter Gallery; that interface shown in Figure 10-4.

    Figure 10-4. The Filter Gallery dialog. Click the folder for any of the effect categories in the center column, then the thumbnail for the filter you want, and you'll see the controls for that filter in the right hand column. To add the effect of more filters, simply click the New Filter icon.

    Actually, when the interface first opens, you see a 1:1 section of your image in the Preview Window. This is a good way to see the detail in the effect, but I prefer getting an overall view first. To do that, click the down arrow just to the right of the Zoom percentage menu and choose Fit in Window.

    Not every Photoshop filter will work in the gallery, but at least one or two from most of the categories will. The categories are listed in the center column. If you click the down arrow for any category, you'll see thumbnails of the effect that are in that category. Click a thumbnail and the gallery will immediately process the image with that effect. This process takes patience, so if you're going to process full-frame filters a lot, invest in a quad 64-bit processor and as much RAM as your computer and budget can take.

  3. Select the filter that looks like it might be the effect you're looking for. As soon as you've seen enough of that effect rendered to get an idea of the result, drag the sliders for that effect so that those individual properties give you a more fine-tuned result.

  4. Click OK any time you satisfied with the results, but you can also experiment with combining a number of filters. Click the New Filter icon (it looks like the Layers palette's New Layer icon). You'll see another copy of the previously chosen filter in the stack. You could set separate settings for this iteration of that filter or you can choose any other filter thumbnails to replace it.

  5. Make the adjustments for the new filter, then add yet another or not. Quit whenever you feel you're ahead. You can also rearrange the order the filters are in by dragging them to a new place in the stack. The cumulative effect can differ quite a bit, depending on the sequence in which the filters are applied.

  6. When you're pretty sure your image has had enough, just click OK. Have a cup of coffee or a good stiff drink. Hope you like what you get.

NOTE

Because of the speed issue, you may want to select only a portion of your image before opening the gallery. You can then run this whole process on just that section of the image. When you like what you see, click OK. Then press Cmd/Ctrl-Z to Undo. Then choose FilterFilter Gallery from the very top of the Filter menunot the one further down. It will then repeat everything you did to that little section you were experimenting on.

Frankly, I find that I can do the job faster and more flexibly by simply duplicating the combined layer several times, running a different filter on each, and then blending the layers using different opacities and Blend Modes (especially Multiply). Besides, I can then change the combination of effects later.




Digital Photography(c) Expert Techniques
Digital Photography Expert Techniques
ISBN: 0596526903
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 124
Authors: Ken Milburn

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