Actions ?? Painting with Light

[lutz]

Hello all,

something that this forum seems to miss a bit, is an exchange of useful scripts (actions). Photoshop actions can be extremely helpful for complex edits.
Obviously I do have very little experience with photoline actions myself. Thus I was only able to create two "Painting With Light" actions which are super simple; nevertheless the photoshop equivalents are very popular.
Invented was this approach by Chip Springer. PWL does allow dodging and burning with greater freedom and error tolerance. The actions themselves will not change the appearance of the image; they will only prepare the layers for convenient "painting". The photoline actions should work exactly as the ones described for photoshop and can be downloaded here.

Photoline PWL actions working in both, versions 13 and 14:
http://www.simplexx.net/actions/PWL_V13_andV14.zip

(Photoline PWL actions for version 14 only; the first attempt, http://www.simplexx.net/actions/PWLactions.zip )

tutorials PWL1:
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=249
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... angemode=1

another nice example:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=25589935

PWL2 is so simple it does not need a tutorial, here a white brush applied to the gray layer lightens and a black brush darkens. Brush intensities can be bit higher for PWL2 (30% and up). And as always use of a very soft brush is recommended.
One advantage of PWL is that the effects are always easily correctable (brush with the complimentary color) and the overall strengths of the effect can be adjusted with the layer transparency in the end.


Is there anywhere information on which steps in photoline are recordable and which not? (filling a layer with a certain color seems to be not recordable for example).

[greenmorpher]

Tried to do this with moderate success. Then I tried again, and the new layers wouldn't fill with any colour. Anyone have an explanation for this?

Also, what are the PL32 equivalents to setting the brush hardness to zero and the opacity to 5%? I presume the Intensity is the PL32 equivalent to PSP's opacity. Yes?

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com

[lutz]

Hello Geoff,

Sorry for the problems. I did record the actions in Photoline14 at first - hoping that there were no changes to previous versions (as these recordings are so simple). Unfortunately the version 14 actions did not work with version 13. I have re-recorded the actions in Photoline 13 and surprisingly they do work now in both, versions 13 and 14 for me.
Yes, the direct equivalent of "opacity" in photoline is the "intensity". The first brushes in the third row of brushes in the default brush selector dialog are perfect (after double-clicking on it you can also check if the "inner radius" in the brush is set to zero ~ equivalent to 100% softness).

Did you have the action selected and "activated" (looks like button pressed) when you tried to run them the second time? Please let me know if there are still problems.

[greenmorpher]

I wasn't using the actions, actually, Lutz, I was just following the tutorial.

How do I add the actions to PhotoLine? I looked in the manual and couldn't find anything.

I'm on v.14 on Mac, by the way.

Cheers, Geoff

[Hoogo]

On windows you can right-click on any action and choose "merge". Be careful: I always click too fast on "load": That replaces the whole set of actions with the file.

[greenmorpher]

Tried again -- I can't seem to fiull my burn and dodge layers with color. At least, it doesn't show up on the layers palette.

Am I looking at a bug or am I doing something wrong (much more likely!)

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com

[lutz]

Geoff, are you creating regular layers, flood filling them, and then change the blend mode? That seems to work manually over here.
For the actions I had to create the dodge and burn layers (or the gray layer) with the CLUT tool.

To load the actions: deselect all the present actions; then right-click into the actions panel and browse for the actions with "Load" - this works for me in windows at least.

[greenmorpher]

Geoff, are you creating regular layers, flood filling them, and then change the blend mode?

That's what I was doing. "General" layers. At the bottom, they have "retain transparency" checked by default. Should it be unchecked? Then I selected the appropriate colour and tried to fill the window with a bucket. The black doesn't show.

To load the actions: deselect all the present actions; then right-click into the actions panel and browse for the actions with "Load" - this works for me in windows at least.

Now there's a whole new problem. I couldn't find "load" or something like it, and in any case, I can't do anything with the Actions palette any longer -- I experimentally clicked on the exclamation mark at the foot of the panel and all the interesting bits disappeared! It became a plain box with the action items in it. Now I can't see any way to get the extra bits back!

Aaargh!

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com

[greenmorpher]

Sorry, the check box is "Use Transparency".

Cheers, geoff

[lutz]

Hi Geoff,

You can find the options in the context menu. In windows right-clicking onto the actions palette. On the MAC it has to be something like apple+click.
Then de-select the option "button mode" at the end of the context menu - you should be back to the regular panel. If you now go to the context menu again you should have the load and save options enabled.

The flood-fill tool works better on a new layer when this layer was generated with "use transparency" de-selected.

[greenmorpher]

Ha! Got the effect working, Lutz, many thanks to you for your patience.

I thought I had a broken flood tool -- but no, I was suffering from not checking the tool settings. Then I kept mixing up the flood and brush tool settings! Oh no!

I've now been able to implement the effect with very satisfying results.

I've loaded your action, thank you, but haven't used that yet. That's a whole other adventure I had better save for later. Right now, in the last hour of daylight here, I had better get out and mow the lawn!

See ya!

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com