Sidebar Title Smart filters on Steroidsgoes Here
During the step-by-step phase of our smart filter discussion,
we stuck to the relatively prosaic task of applying corrective
effects to a flat photograph. But in the right hands, smart filters
can serve as radically creative tools as well. Only take care: As
natural as it might seem to employ filters in a creative fashion,
your artistic experimentation can turn into an unqualified
efficiency pit as one filter after another fails to produce quite
the desired effect. And if you already have experience losing
track of time playing with filters, it only gets worse with smart
filters. Not only can you stir a near-infinite variety of filter
cocktails, garnished with different blend modes and opac-
ity settings, but you can do it all nondestructively. This may
lead you to ignore the obvious side effect of the parametric
wonderland: your diminished capacity to get anything done.
Few things are worse than wasting hours pilfering through
filters only to wake up in the imaging equivalent of a foreign
motel room with a severe hangover and a lampshade on your
head. So as with other cocktails, pace yourself. Keep an eye
on the clock. Avoid aimless wandering. And recognize when
it’s time to stop.
That said, you can accomplish some interesting stuff. By way
of example, I started with the letterboxed composition below,
comprising little more than another Joey Nelson photograph
(already converted to a smart object) and some live text set
against a black background. I then applied a labyrinthine
combination of smart filters, adjustment layers, masks, and
layer effects to achieve the movie poster at the bottom of the
facing page.
I started by applying a sequence of effects filters
to the smart object photograph. To follow along,
open Kill Jill art.psd in the Lesson 7 folder, select
the Model layer, and try the following (all available from the
Filter menu):- Artistic→Cutout. Number of Levels: 6, Edge Simplic-
ity: 1, and Edge Fidelity: 2. I changed the blend mode
to Linear Light and the Opacity to 30 percent. - Sketch→Conté Crayon. Default filter settings, with the
blend mode set to Normal and 40 percent Opacity. - Noise→Add Noise. Amount: 20 percent, Distribution:
Gaussian, Monochrome: on. Opacity: 30 percent.
While I found the results intriguing (see the detail below),
they didn’t convey the effect I was looking for. So I decided
to switch out a couple of the filters. Happily, you can swap
any filter that calls up the big Filter Gallery, which includes
Cutout and Conté Crayon. (To switch a non-Filter Gallery
command such as Add Noise, you have to delete and reapply.)
After a bit of investigation, I decided to double-click Cutout
and Conté Crayon (each) and replace them with Poster Edges
and Reticulation, respectively. Here’s how:- Artistic→Poster Edges. Edge Thickness: 2, Edge Inten-
sity: 1, Posterization: 5. - Sketch→Reticulation. Density: 20, Foreground Level:
50, Background Level: 30.
Reticulation created enough noise for my tastes, so I turned
off Add Noise by clicking its. The result appears below.
246 Lesson 7: Sharpening and Smart Objects