GMX-PhotoPainter - Texture and Brushes Tutorial
Converting a digital photo to a painting using different brushes and textures
This tutorial only applies to the Bitmap Brush Style.
Appart from the Color Mode, and other basic parameters like width, length and transparency, the following properties affect how a GMX-PhotoPainter Style will look:
The Brush Bitmap
The bitmap brush is a crucial element that decides how a
brush stroke will look. Using any of the Tools
of GMX-PhotoPainter the bitmap brush will be deformed along a path
that the Rendering
Engine has calculated.
Deppending on how the Bitmap brushes are, they can be more
appropriated to mimic certain effects, for example if the bitmap brush is
hard it's likely that it'll work better to mimic oil painting, while a very
soft brush will work better to mimic watercolor. If the bitmap brush is
granular then it can be useful to mimic crayon painting.
Creating a particular style is like an alquemy, it's the art of finding a good combination of the transparency, brush bitmap, texture and other parameters.
Example done using different brushes
To choose a brush you have to click on the Texture&Brushes Tab, and then click on the "Select" Button below the selected brush.
When you click on the "Select" button that is below the current brush sample, a window with a list of available brushes like this one will pop up:
Below there are four examples of the same image painted with 4 different brushes:
Brush Number 1 |
 |
Brush Number 2 |
 |
Brush Number 3 |
 |
Brush Number 4 |
 |
Painted with Brush Number 1
Painted with Brush Number 2
Painted with Brush Number 3
Painted with Brush Number 4
It's important to note here that no other setting was changed, only the Bitmap Brush was changed.
Texture
The texture feature is useful when you are trying to mimic canvas texture, etc.
Example done using different brushes
To turn on the textures click on the "Texture&Brushes" Tab, then click in the Enable Textures checkbox. You can change the current texture by clicking on the "Select" Button below the selected texture.
When you click in the "Select" button that is below the current pattern sample, a window with a list of available patterns like this one, will pop up:
Below there are three examples of the same image painted without a pattern, and with 2 different patterns:
Texture Number 1 |
 |
Texture Number 2 |
 |
Painted with no texture
Painted with Texutre Number 1
Painted with Texture Number 2
3D Brushes
This gives thickness to the brushstrokes.
Example done using 3D Brushes
To turn on 3D Brushes click in the "3D Brushes" Tab, then click in the 3D Brushes checkbox. Three settings controls the 3D Brushes:
| Depth | With more depth, more noticeable is the effect, it can be attenuated by the softness parameter. |
| Softness | With more softness, less noticeable is the effect. |
| Elevation | This changes the illumination of the 3D effect. If you don't want to change the global brightness of the image, keep it between 29 and 36. |
To let you compare, the following digital photo of a tiger was converted to a painting with no 3D effect:
The same digital photo was converted to a painting, but this time with the "3D Brushes" on:
If you compare the settings of the previous drawing with the next one, you'll notice that the depth in the next one is lower, but the 3D effect is slightly more noticeable than the previous one. This is because in the previous drawing the softness parameter is much higher.
Gradient Brushes
There is an interesting feature in GMX named "Gradient Brushes. "If it's checked, then brush colors won't be solid. Instead, this will blend the starting color and ending color of the brushstroke. In the following example, it becomes clear how this works:
See Also:
