Tutorial about creating Custom Styles in GMX-PhotoPainter

What it a Style?

As in the real world, GMX-PhotoPainter paintings are composed of many overlapped brushstrokes. Each brushstroke has it’s associated style which defines how it will look. A GMX painting does not have to use the same style on the whole picture, you can start by painting some brushstrokes with a desired style, and then switch to a different style when it’s required. There are a number of predefined styles, that can be directly accessed by clicking on the Style icon:

While GMX provides you a variety of predefined styles, the real power of GMX comes when you define your own styles. There are a lot of properties that a style have , each of which can be modified. This guide will help you learn how to create a style and how to choose the right parameters for it.

Types of Styles

You can skip this section and jump directly to the Create a Basic Style Mini
Tutorial.
In GMX-PhotoPainter there are three different kinds of Styles:

Bitmap Brush Style

Each brushstroke consists in a image deformed along a path, each one is drawn using the selected color mode. This style is commonly used by many predefined styles.

Bitmap Brush

The Bitmap Brush Style has the following characteristics and features:

By looking at the Style
Options Availability Table
you can check that almost all Style options are available for the Bitmap Brush Style.

Bristle Brush Style (Algorithmic Brush)

The Bristle Brush Style does not use an image, instead the brushstroke is composed of many small and fine lines or dots of a similar color.

Bitmap Brush

There are four kinds of different Bristle Brushes:

bristle dots
Bristle Brush: Dots

short threads
Bristle Brush: Short threads

large threads
Bristle Brush: Large threads

large threads fines
Bristle Brush: Large threads (thin lines)

pompom thick
Pompom Style: (thick lines)

pompom fine
Pompom Style: (thin lines)

Note that decreasing the with of the lines, (figures 4 and 6) results in more soften paintings.
Also to obtain softer results you can decrease the “Alpha” parameter.

How to create a new Style

  1. In the style bar at the bottom left click on the button “New”:

  2. GMX-PhotoPainter will ask the name for the new style:

enter-style-name

  1. Now you have to choose between “Algorithmic Brush” or “Bitmap Brush”:

create-new-style-step1

  1. If you chose “Bitmap Brush” you will see Bitmap Brush Settings Screen:

create-new-style-step2

  1. If you chose “Algorithmic Brush” you will see Bristle Brush Settings Screen:

create-new-style-step3

  1. The following screen will be color settings:

create-new-style-step4

  1. Final Screen:

create-new-style-step5

Pen and Ink Style

The Pen and Ink Brush Style it’s fully covered in the Pen and Ink Tutorial. However it’s adequate to point out here some differences and similarities with the Bitmap Brushes:

pen and ink - cassius clay cassius clay thick detail

Blending Modes

This option let you overlap the color over a painting done in black and white, or vice versa, you can paint the black and white details over a color image.
The following example will show this feature:

Original Photo:

vintage car - original

Now, this photo painted in Pen&Ink Style:

vintage car pen-and-ink

Now the last step, choose some style, and then, modify it by opening the Color Window, and then choose the Blend Mode “Color Only”:

blend mode color only

This is the final result:

vintage car - painted