Effects Filters

This group of filters for the most part produce a variety of studio techniques traditionally achieved in drawing, painting, and photography. Artistic, Brush Strokes, Sketch, and Texture are the four groups of filters once called Gallery Effects. These all approximate different kinds of fine art, painterly techniques. With some of them, the results resemble effects that it would take several passes with standard Photoshop filters to achieve.

Artistic, Brush Strokes, and Sketch Filters

The Artistic effects attempt to reproduce the effects of traditional art media, such as Watercolor, Dry Brush, and Fresco. Brush Strokes filters convert the surface of the image into various styles of colored strokes, such as Crosshatch and Sprayed Stroke. Sketch filters use your foreground and background colors to replace your image colors while creating textures. If you want to get some of the original color back, just use your Fade command. Its usefulness is not to be underestimated.

Take a look at Figure 20.33, and the color version of these images as Figure C34a “e in the color section, for a variety of Artistic effects.

Figure 20.33: Examples of the Artistic filters

Note  

Artistic, Brush Strokes, Sketch, and Texture filters are not available in Lab, Indexed, or CMYK modes. If you re working in any of those modes, you must convert to RGB or Grayscale mode before you can apply these effects.

Texture Filters

The Texture filters produce a a simulated surface on an image. Choose Filter ’ Texture or access these filters through the Filter Gallery. The Texture filters include Craclature, Grain, Mosaic Tiles, Stained Glass, Patchwork, and the Texturizer.

The Texturizer filter, gives you the most play, enabling you to choose from a list of surfaces including Brick, Burlap, Canvas, and Sandstone. You can also apply custom textures by clicking on the arrow in the upper right of the control panel to access the load texture command. Then you can regulate the scale, relief, and light source. The Texturizer filter is particularly useful for creating the effect that an image is painted on a surface (see Figure 20.34).

Figure 20.34: The Texturizer dialog box in the Filter Gallery