New StudioArtist Information Resource

[Synthetik]

I've started a new Studio Artist information blog available at studioartist.posterous.com .  This personal blog is an attempt to start posting casual tips explaining how to build different digital art effects in Studio Artist. The goal is to shoot for short daily posts, although we'll see how that goes. So over time the site should build up a large collection of information regarding 'how to' tips on building different kinds of effects. 

This is an experiment, feel free to comment on things you'd like to see covered there, how it could be improved, or whatever.  In theory you can comment on the posts there, so you should be able to ask questions about different topics covered there and get replies.

[Thorrific]

Cool John, thanks!

[Bernard Bunner]

Thank you

[Dee Flouton]

Excellent, John, thanks!

[Chris Northcross]

(Scratching my head)

Is it December 25th already cause it sure feels like Christmas!
This is fantastic! Thanks John.

[Susan McAnany]

Great, maybe you could post some beginner "how to stuff" for those of us just starting out with Studio Artist. An example would be information and use of the different Composite Options on the Layers Menu. Just an idea. Thanks.

[Synthetik]

Sure, i can do that. I'll put together a few interesting beginners projects i can post about. The next few days worth of posts on the site delve into various slit scan effects in response to a different user's question about how to use them. Just by it's nature that's probably a somewhat more complicate set of topics. But after that i'll try to get up a few simpler 'getting started' projects or examples.

In some ways the best approach to working with the different layer composite options is to try them out using 2 different images in 2 different layers.

Some options like Min or Max i hope make sense. The refer to the minimum or maximum values at each pixel. Min is great is you have a second layer with black paint effects on a white background, and you want to just put the black paint effects into the color image associated with another layer.

Edge1 is another one that can be easy to understand, where the image in the second layer acts to boost the edge content of the layer before it.

But the theory behind some of the other options might be a little hard to think through, so trying out the results and seeing what they look like is often the best approach to working with them.

[Synthetik]

One other point about 'layers' i wanted to get across. Studio Artist is unique, in that many operations that would require you to use multiple layers to do in other digital photo programs can be done working with a single layer using the built in generic composite operations that are available for all op modes in Studio Artist that put something onto the canvas.

So rather than having to use 2 layers, and then min composite the second layer to add black outlining effects to an existed canvas fro an image operation that generates black outlining on white background, you can just min composite the ip op effect into the existing canvas.

Compositing effects take 2 input images and generate 1 output image. so every studio artist op mode that generates effects into the canvas allows you to composite the effect output into the existing layer as opposed to just replacing it.

I'll put together a post for the new blog that runs through what i'm talking about above to build an effect.



We oftentimes laugh at some photoshop magazine tutorials here in the Synthetik office because they will use something crazy like working with 13 layers and 27 different steps to build some simple paint effect, when you could quickly do something similar in studio artist using one layer.

[Synthetik]

Starting on Oct 22nd a few tips regarding working with compositing and layers and the generic compositing options (to avoid having to use multiple layers) will be posted. the first tip discusses using min compositing to overlay black outlines on an existing canvas. The tip shows you 2 different approaches to doing it, one using generic effect compositing into a single layer, the other approach using 2 layers.

[Chris Northcross]

I've got one:

When I put together photomosaic brushes and use them to paint images that have an alpha channel, the brush image invariably shows up in the transparent space of the image with alpha. How can I build a brush that will isolate only the opaque parts of the image?

[Synthetik]

I'll put together a future post on this topic.

The quick answer is that you want to use the Source Alpha Brush option for the Brush Type. This builds the part of the source brush that is used for defining the nib shape and mix for building up the Fill From and Fill To paint buildup on the brush nib from the alpha channel of the source brush as opposed to the RGB component of the source brush. So the alpha channel can define the shape of the nib and the RGB image component of the source brush can then be painted onto that nib.

One of the very first photo posts i made to the forum here was generated with a movie brush with embedded alpha.