PHOTOS
PRESENTATIONS
Introduction and Project 1
Ripple a Flag
Paint Your Own Displacement Map
PSP 9 added the ability to create and use displacement maps. Similar to ( but actually better than and easier to use) their Photoshop equivalents. Displacement maps serve many different functions. Let's look at a few of them.
The first and most typical use is to "bend" a 2-dimensional image so that it appears to conform to a 3-dimensional shape-- wrapping a logo around a coffee mug, putting a tattoo on an arm, putting a label on a wine bottle, putting ripples in a flag. It does this by using a trick of the light, mind and eye-- dark colors, our brain says, appear to recede, light colors appear to come forward. In software terms, in a displacement map a black area moves the pixels down and to the left and a white area moves pixels up and to the right.
Let's look at a simple example. There are images of flags of many, many nations at http://www.showyourcolors.org/worldflags.html
I'm going to be using an American flag, but you can choose any flag you like.
1- Choose File>New. Create a new 24 bit image with a white raster background 500 pixels x 500 pixels. You can see all of the settings for the dialog box by clicking here
2- Open your web browser and navigate to Show Your Colors. Choose the country whose flag you would like to use. When the image opens, right-click on the image to Copy your it to the clipboard. Return to PSP. Choose Edit>Paste> As New Layer (or CTRL+L and paste it into your PSP image as a new layer. Yours should look something like the one at right (size reduced). Pasting as a new layer automatically centers the image.
3- Flying flags do not ordinarily sit at a perfect 90 degree angle to the ground (that pesky gravity, you know) so let's rotate it a little. Press CTRL+R to bring up the Free Rotate dialog box and set the following parameters
- Direction: Right
- Degrees: Free- 10
- Clear the checkbox beside All Layers and
- Choose "Rotate single layer around canvas center" by placing a check in the appropriate box.
Your image should now look the one at right (size reduced)
4- Flying flags (except here in Florida during hurricane season) don't usually have perfectly straight edges, either. To add a little realism, we're going to need the Warp Brush. Choose it from the Tools toolbar (it is nested with the Paint brush and Airbrush) and set the tool options as shown here
Notice that I'm using a very big, very soft brush. We only want to "mess up" just the edges and just a little bit. The displacement map will do the rest.
With this large, soft, Warp brush, push and pull on the edges just a tiny amount. Now our flag looks like the one at right.
5- Now we're ready for the displacement map magic. Open a new image, exactly the same size and shape as the first one. (It doesn't have to be the same, but let's make it easy on ourselves.) PSP remembers the last image you created, so all you’ll have to do is choose File>New and click OK when the dialog box opens.
6- When your new white image opens, take the Paintbrush (the default settings are fine) and some black paint and paint a few thick diagonal lines on the canvas. Just a few, and you don't have to be very precise.(In fact, the result will be more realistic if your lines are not perfectly spaced and perfectly straight.) Your black and white image will look something like the one at right.
You've just created a displacement map. Now let's find out how to use it.
7- Make your flag image active again. Look at the layers palette or the title bar of the image to make sure that the layer with the flag on it is the active layer (it was named "Raster 1" by default by PSP when you pasted your flag into it.)
Choose Effects>Distortion Effects>Displacement Map. When the dialog box opens, it is going to look confusing or awful! Don't panic. PSP can't guess what it is you want to do, so it applies some default settings. They're rarely the right ones. Once you get the hang of this, you'll love it. For the purposes of this project, set the options as shown below. But, before you click OK, let's look at the dialog box for a minute. There's a lot of power here, and it is so much more user-friendly than similar controls found in other software that it bears looking at closely.
Section
1
The Displacement Map
In this section, you will choose the image that will distort your primary image. If you click the tiny arrow on the right side of the square picker box a menu of available images will appear. This includes all images stored in your Displacement Maps folders, plus any images currently open in PSP. (There's even a Resource Manger inside there that will let you add folders and locations on the fly!)
The next option answers the question "how do you want PSP to treat the map if it is smaller than your image?" This option, while no important in this particular exercise allows for some very creative options.
And the last option is my favorite in this section, the Blur. Why, you ask? Because (unlike some other software programs which will remain nameless)
PSP allows you to preview and adjust the intensity of the displacement without a lot of messing around. Folks familiar with other displacement map programs may have wondered why I didn't tell you to blur and save the map image beforehand. Now you know why! That's an unnecessary step in PSP. For the purposes of this exercise, locate the image you created in step 6 in the picker (it will be near the top) and set the blur to about 40 to get nice, smooth ripples. A higher value will produce wrinkles, a lower value will produce softer hills and valleys.
Section 2 The Displacement Properties
This section is also unique to PSP. You have the option of 2 or 3 dimensional offsets. To give an appearance of movement, volume, or curvature to a flat object, choose 2D. To emboss or engrave a shape into a surface, choose 3D. (We'll see an example of that in another project) Rotation and intensity allow you to compensate for the lighting and other particulars of a given image. Feel free to experiment with it, but for our purposes with the flag an Intensity setting of 10 and a Rotation setting of 0 is fine.
Section 3 The Edge Mode
As in many other effects in PSP, you are being asked here what you want the software to do if distorting the image results in empty spaces at the edges of the canvas. In this project, it doesn't matter which option you choose, because there is so much empty space around our flag. In other projects, you may need to make a choice.
- Wrap fills in empty spaces with the equivalent pixels from the opposite side. If there are missing pixels on the right edge, it will fill the void with a copy of the pixels from the left edge. (Top and bottom edges work similarly)
- Repeat fills the empty space with a repeat of the last pixel color on the distorted edge. This is often an excellent choice when you are distorting against a solid background.
- Color fills the gaps with a color of your choosing. When this option is selected, the swatch to the right is activated, and clicking in the swatch opens a color picker.
- Transparent does not fill the gaps. It leaves them empty.
8- Our flag is starting to look pretty good, but it's not quite complete yet. It needs highlights and shadows. The good news is you've already created them! After you click OK and accept the settings in the Displacement Map effect, go back to your black and white image, created in step 6, and Copy it to the clipboard by pressing CTRL+C, then return to the flag image and Paste it as a New Layer, by pressing CTRL+L.
If your Layers palette isn't visible, make it visible now by pressing the F8 key. Change the Layer Blend Mode of this new layer to Darken, and decrease the opacity to 50%.
9- Now Choose Adjust>Blur>Gaussian Blur. When the dialog box opens, choose a setting of 20, and click OK.
10- With the Eraser, simply erase any "shadows" that fall outside the flag.(The full size image actually looks better than the one at right, as it has been compressed for the web)
11- With the shadow layer still active, Choose Layers>Merge>Merge Down to permanently bond the shadows to the flag.
If you like, add a flagpole, some Picture Tube eyelets and cords and a pretty blue sky and your colors are flying high! (Picture tubes used: Jasc Metallic Rivets and Rope)
Ready for another project with
displacement maps?
Then let's move on to Project 2-- Painless
Tattoo Displacement with a Photographic
Map