"Pillow Emboss" in PhotoLine?

[photoken]

One of the nice layer styles I remember from using PhotoShopElements was its "Pillow Emboss" effect:

pillow emboss 02.jpg

The effect is like having this as a cross section:

pillow emboss cross section.jpg

I haven't been able to duplicate that effect in PL. Can anyone get that effect? If not, then this is a feature request....

[Herbert123]

Yes, I noticed this as well when I began to use Photoline for my work two years ago. I do miss it at times, and now that the brothers are working on improving the layer effects, perhaps now is a good time to request for this to be implemented in Photoline.

[Gerhard Huber]

tried to build it in PhotoLine

PillowEmboss.jpg

[bkh]

Not sure how Gerhard made his version, but in principle, you can do it by "punching" a butterfly shaped hole in the background (e.g., by using vector difference if you have a layer mask, or by inverting a bitmap layer mask) and then applying a "special emboss" to a group containing both layers. Here's a simple version (sorry, didn't have a butterfly at hand.)

Pillow emboss.jpg

The background layer must be larger than the document, otherwise you'll see the embossed outer edge.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[Herbert123]

tried to build it in PhotoLine

PillowEmboss.jpg

Looks good - if we had the ability to position the outer glow just like the dropshadow, we could achieve the same effect with a layer effect only.

[Herbert123]

Not sure how Gerhard made his version, but in principle, you can do it by "punching" a butterfly shaped hole in the background (e.g., by using vector difference if you have a layer mask, or by inverting a bitmap layer mask) and then applying a "special emboss" to a group containing both layers. Here's a simple version (sorry, didn't have a butterfly at hand.)

Pillow emboss.jpg

The background layer must be larger than the document, otherwise you'll see the embossed outer edge.

Cheers

Burkhard.

Also a good solution. Would still be nice if we could solve this with one layer and a layer effect.

[bkh]

Would still be nice if we could solve this with one layer and a layer effect.

You can – almost. One can create a V-shaped border with the "special emboss" layer – just that one can't create an effect which is part inside, part outside the shape. Maybe one could add an "outer emboss" pane to the "special emboss" layer effect which allows to add an "outer emboss" part as well.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[photoken]

tried to build it in PhotoLine

Gerhard,
Thanks for the sample PLD! Your result is much closer to the "Pillow Emboss" effect than I was able to achieve.

That's a very clever use of Shadow Outside to approximate the embossing, but it is still an approximation. There are noticable differences between the embossing done in PSE and the approximation in the PLD -- subtle differences, but differences nonetheless....

[photoken]

...
but in principle, you can do it by "punching" a butterfly shaped hole in the background

Yes, your technique gives a "true" embossing effect. That's a clever technique of applying the layer style to the group -- I'll have to keep that in mind. Thanks for the PLD!

However, as you mention, there are problems when the embossing effect appears at the edges of the background. It's easy enough to compensate for that when the background is a simple colour, but if the background is a photograph there will be scaling/disortion/cropping problems with the compensation.

I also miss the capability of changing the size, position, orientation, etc., of the embossed effect relative to the background, compared to what can be done if the Pillow Embossing were a layer style simply applied to the foreground object.

[photoken]

Maybe one could add an "outer emboss" pane to the "special emboss" layer effect which allows to add an "outer emboss" part as well.

I think that would work, but it would then make more sense to just add a new "Pillow Emboss" layer style that had its own independent, "complete" set of options, including the list of border profiles.