Simplifier and Simplify Filters
This week I have been playing with a few older freeware or free trial filters to see if I like any of them and are they still relevant. I ran across a free filter called buzz Simplifier, that had been packed with the Digital Camera Magazine number 17′s CD. I started reseaching this filter and found out the company that made the filter, Fo2PiX, had gone bankrupt and the filter was no longer supported. I also discovered that the Simplifier filter on the CD was listed as “SimplyFair” and created by Amphisoft in 2003 – it is freeware software and you can download it here. So it looks like Amphisoft may have given it to Fo2PiX. They in turn include it in their larger Buzz Pro 3 package. Anyway, I thought I would show what both of these filters do – I rather liked the effects although I used other filters to get the look I wanted. I am using the image above of London Eye that I took two years ago on vacation for my base image.
Quoting from Trimoon’s Blog “The Simplifier effect is based on patented Sieve transform technology, which ‘allows an image to be segmented into its component parts, in order that they may be identified, understood, labeled, and indexed.’ In essence Simplifier removes unimportant detail from a photo while preserving color, focus, shape and edge leaving one with an improved base image for applying other effects. You control how much or how little detail you wish to remove from the original photo by adjusting the Simplifier controls.” Below it the result I got using the single Amphisoft Simplifier filter from the magazine.
I used these settings in the Simplify dialog box to get this result:
Radius 1
Square
Dark Edge 255
Light Edge 36
Spread 1
I really like the way it darkened the Ferris Wheel lines against the sky but I had to mask the effect from the sky since it gave too many edges in this area. Using the Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 collection, I selected the Skylight Filter at Strength 70% to bring out the sky, and then added a layer mask to mask out everything but the sky since this filter turned the water and buildings yellowish. You can actually get this filter free along with the Tonal Contrast and the Contrast filters by buying Vincent Versace’s new book, Welcome to Oz 2.0. I also used Nik’s CEP 3 Vignette to center the image on “The Eye” itself but you can make your own vignette fairly easily to do the same thing.
Now to the complicated part. I have also used the Buzz Simplifier One filter from the Buzz Pro 3 plug in that can be downloaded here and which was made by the now defunct Fo2PiX. (Note: There was also a Buzz.Lite plug in offered free with several British magazines and came with three pre-set filter stacks and six filters that included: Simplifier One; Edges Mono; Edges Colour; Emboss; Radial Blur; Radial Simplifier. The Buzz Pro 3 included everything in Buzz.Lite and more – 25 pre-set Stacks and 22 filters as follows: Simplifier One; Simplifier Two; Simplifier Three; Blur; Blur More; Bright/Contrast; Directional Blur; Edges Colour; Edges Mono; Emboss; Gaussian Blur; Highlights White; Lowlights Black; Highlights Colour; Pure Colour; Radial Blur; Radial Screen; Radial Simplifier; Simplifier HSV; Spread Black; Spread White; and Unsharp Mask.)
To use this filter, you must add effects from the Available Effects column into the Current Stack. Simplifier One, Simplifier Two and Simplifier Three are included along with several other effects. (There is a really nice pdf manual that explains each of the effects in detail that came with the download.) I was mainly just interested in the Simplifier filters for this post. I started adjusting the settings and ended up with the result below. This filter can take quite a while to load the effects you added so keep the amounts lower to preview if it slows down too much (I use Windows 7). When comparing the two filters, the Amphisoft Simplifier has basically 4 sliders (radius, dark edge, light edge, and spread) while the Buzz Pro Simplifier filter has only one slider (remove) and a choice for light, dark or both. I believe the Buzz filter looks much more artistic and painterly than the Amphisoft Simplifier. I used the same layer masks and Nik filters on each image so the results could be accurately compared. Here is a link to several images where someone had applied the Buzz Simplifier filter,
It has been suggested that Topaz Simplify has very similar effects. In fact, many people on the internet seem to think this is better than Buzz Simplifier ever was. They say that Topaz does not crash their computers and has more sliders to get the results you want. I created the same image with Topaz Simplify Image Crisp Edge setting – used default settings except for Simplify Size of 0.10 and Details Strength of 1.0. Only with this setting could I bring the wires in cleanly from the Ferris Wheel and it was not that great. Otherwise it does appear to be comparable to the other images. I have noticed before that the Topaz Simplify filters have trouble with colors in segmented regions (like the region between the ferris wheel wires) and often discolors these little areas so they do not match up with the background areas. Oddly enough, this is one of the complaints I see about the Buzz Simplifier so I will have to experiment more to see. Topaz Simplify does have a setting called BuzSim which I know does look somewhat like the other two and has similar sliders including Remove Small and Remove Weak. I would definitely download a trial and try it as it is still a great filter to own and experiment with on your images.
Finally, I added an example of the same image using the Simplifier Three filter effect from Buzz Pro applied twice to get the rich dark sky. First I had adjusted the tone and contrast of the image and converted a layer to a sepia color at 50% opacity.
I actually liked the results of both older filters although there appears to be subtle differences between them. The ones I reviewed here still do a good job for what they were intended to do. I believe I will continue using them even though they are older, as their looks are a little different from what can be done with newer filters like the Topaz Simplify filters. I personally love to have choices when trying to create an artistic look. I hope you enjoyed this post and will try some of your old filters again. You might be surprised by some of your results!
Pixel Bender Droste Effect
This week I read an interesting blog by John Derry on the Droste Effect using the free Adobe Pixel Bender plug-in (click to download) for Photoshop. Note often an error warning comes up when applying Pixel Bender – just say OK. Most tutorials on the Pixel Bender plug-in have used the Oil Painting Effect. You can click here to download the Droste Effect that must be added into this plug-in to use. It can also be downloaded at the Adobe Pixel Bender Exchange here. I have been having some fun with this effect and thought I would share some of my results. I found it worked best for me to use a more graphic look as opposed to pictures I have taken, but you might get a very different result using different settings.
For the above image, I followed a tutorial at Computer Arts called “All-new abstract illustration techniques” by Per Gustafson to create the original graphic-looking image (a free pdf file with instructions can be downloaded from this site). I also used an OnOne PhotoFrames plug-in to add the extra whitish look. These are the settings I used in the plug-in to get this effect:
Size 680/680
Radius Inside 27.073
Radius Outside 100
Periodicity 1
Strands 1
Check Strand Mixer
Zoom 4.35
Rotate 25.2
Antialiasing 1
Center 90/64
Center Shift 150/2
Background RGB 0/0/0/1
Levels 9
Level Start 3
Check Transparent Inside
Check Transparent Outside
Check Twist
Uncheck Periodicity
Rotate Polar 36
Rotate Spin 0
Uncheck hyperDroste
Fractal Points 0
The above image is the same original image as the first one, but I just continued tweaking the sliders and got this totally different look. I did not record all the changes but it was quite easy to make. After applying the plug-in, I used Nik Silver Efex Pro to convert the image to black and white, set the layer to 43%, made a composite (CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+E) and applied the Sunshine filter from Nik Color Efex Pro, and finally added an Inner Glow and a Stroke layer style.
The image below was created using this beautiful texture – you can download it here. I thought it turned out quite interesting. These are the settings I used for this effect:
Size 373/490
Radius Inside 36.064
Radius Outside 52.48
Periodicity 1.44
Strands 2
Check Strand Mirror
Zoom 0
Rotate 147.6
Antialiasing 1
Center 20/70
Center Shift (-20)/200
Background RGB 0/0/0/1
Levels 14
Level Start 1
Check Transparent Inside
Check Transparent Outside
Check Twist
Uncheck Periodicity Auto
Rotate Polar (-97.2)
Rotate Spin (-352.8)
Uncheck hyperDroste
Fractal Points 0
I tried to follow the settings included in the blog entry from the Digital Photography School on the Droste Effect for the hibiscus image below. I used completely different settings from the other pictures. I followed the tutorials suggestion of making it a floral square image. Settings for this Pixel Bender Droste Effect are as follows:
Size 2616/2616
Radius Inside 51.549
Radius Outside 100
Periodicity 1.2
Strands 1
Check Strand Mirror
Zoom 3.6
Rotate (-36)
Antialiasing 1
Center (-6)/0
Center Shift 0/0
Background RGBA 0/0/0/1
Levels 5
Start Level 3
Uncheck Transparent Inside
Check Transparent Outside
Check Twist
Uncheck Periodicity Auto
Rotate Polar 0
Rotate Spin (-115.2)
Uncheck hyperDroste
Fractal Points 0
Overall this is a really fun plug-in to try. I believe that with a little effort and becoming familiar with the settings, you could get some great artistic effects.
My Valentine Images
I found a blog by Heather Angel at Pixiq called “Natures Valentines” that inspired me to think about what images of mine were valentine-like in feeling. Not surprisingly, they are flowers. I love to photograph and paint flowers. So for this blog I am just going to post what I consider “My Valentine Images.”
I hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!
A Few More Valentines to Make
This is just a quick blog to finish up my series on Valentines. Recently OnOne Software came out with more templates including some more Valentine templates. I used the Valentine Layout 5×7 Vertical Back and added a few embellishments of my own to give you an idea of what you can do with these wonderful templates that OnOne keeps furnishing to us for free.
This image contains similar elements I used in previous Valentines on my blog. Just to save you time, if you want to link to them: McSweetie Hearts from dafont.com, Cupid Brushes by glass-prism at Deviant Arts, and scatter heart brush from digitalTouch at Deviant Arts. The large heart was created using a Custom Shape in Photoshop and creating a large stroke with a pattern in it to give it the white edge. I did try out the Topaz Remask 3 to cut my lovely model out of the image I had taken. I was pretty pleased with the result for my first attempt.
The above image I created using a fairly quick tutorial from Gavin Hoey called “Valentines Card from Scratch” that he posted up on YouTube. I basically followed the tutorial except I changed the color of the roses. Have a Happy Valentines Day!
Create Postage Stamps with Your Images
Method One: (the old fashioned way – do it yourself)
I just did a really fun tutorial from Gavin Hoey at TipSquirrel. This site has lots of short fun tutorials. This is one from a few months ago and is called “Old Postage Stamp Effect in Photoshop.” Here is an example of following the tutorial pretty closely.
The original image was cropped and Matt Kloskowski’s Lightroom preset Matt’s Vintage Style was applied along with a few adjustments to get the correct colors. I wanted a vintage look since the postmark has a 1968 date on it. I also found out that stamps cost only 6 cents then. The image was brought into Photoshop to begin the stamp look. Gavin has graciously given us the brown envelop background and the two postmarks as a download to help complete the tutorial. Ok, here goes the quick tutorial version – check out Gavin’s short video for a visual understanding.
1. Open up your image.
2. Set Color Picker to default Blank and White.
3. Go to Image – Canvas Size and increase the canvas by 10%
4. Unlock background layer by double clicking on the layer.
5. Select Eraser Tool and in Options set brush Mode to Pencil, Size 100 pixels and in the Brush Panel, set Spacing to 150%. Click on top left corner once, then hold SHIFT+click on upper right corner, SHIFT+click on bottom right corner, SHIFT+click on top left corner to complete the outside of the image with perforated edges.
6. Add text layer to indicate the cost of the stamp.
7. Go to Layers – Merge Visible to preserve transparency for edges.
8. Open up background, in this case the brown texture Gavin provided.
9. Drag stamp layer into this image and close the stamp image. Free Transform (CTRL+T to center and adjust on paper texture.
10. Go to File – Place and choose post-mark-lines-GAVIN-HOEY. Free Transform (CTRL+T to size and place along top of stamp. Change Layer Blend Mode to Multiply and reduce opacity.
11. Go to File – Place and choose post-mark-GAVIN-HOEY. Free Transform (CTRL+T) to size, rotate slightly and place in upper left of image. Change Layer Blend Mode to Multiply and reduce opacity.
12. Highlight stamp layer and open Layer Style at bottom of Layers Palette. Select Bevel and Emboss and change Depth to 144 in my case, Size to 32 and Soften to 7. Change Shadow Mode Color to H37/S79/B35 for a nice soft brown.
That’s it. I used OnOne’s PhotoTools Professional Edition 2.6 software and added an Antique Color set to Soften at 41% opacity. I used OnOne’s PhotoFrame 4.6 Professional Edition to Dave Cross’s Frame 17. I love both of these products and use them all the time.
Method Two: (the easy way)
I just created another stamp image using pshero’s Photoshop tutorial and file with a stamp template that can be downloaded by scrolling to the bottom of their tutorial. This is a really simple way to get a quick stamp effect if you do not want to go through all the steps. They also include some wonderful brush postmarks from Kiyay71677 on the Deviant Art site to add on top of your stamp. If you want postmarks indicating that are very nice but contain UPS and FedEx stamps, check the Redheadstock Brushes also at Deviant Art. I created the above stamp image using a tutorial from 123RF’s website called Cloudy Text Effect. They should have included the vintage look in the title as it is a great effect and the Cloud Text Brush was easy to create. To make it easy for you to try, I created a Photoshop Action called SJ-Vintage Effect Action to use. You can adjust the Hue/Sat Adjustment Layer and Layer Style to taste. Run this action on your original image background layer. I also created the Cloud Text & Smoke Brush to download and add to top layer of action. It can create nice good looking white heavy smoke or clouds.
Finally I created this Valentine Stamp using the same template from the tutorial above. The center hearts are My Valentine Shapes from Brusheezy. The really cute cupid brushes can be downloaded for free. I put each stroke on its own layer and then copied the layer a couple of time to get the pure white look I was after. The little hearts are just one really nice scatter brush from digitalTouch on Deviant Art. I used my old standby font from Cosmi that I used in previous valentine blogs. So here is my final stamp.
Well that about does it for this blog. Hope you get a chance to try Gavin’s tutorial or at least download the template, brushes and action in Method Two. (Check out pshero’s website for other great tutorials while there.) It is fun to give your images a different look sometimes.
