Jigsaw

[bruce1951]

I'm looking for a program or plugin that will give me a jigsaw puzzle affect on a photo. I'm wondering if anyone can make any suggestions. There are apps for phone cameras but I need to stick with 300ppi and 300+meg files sizes.

Any ideas?

regards

[bkh]

You can just add a layer with a jigsaw pattern (something like http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free- ... ge24174355) in mode "multiply".

If you need to move single puzzle pieces, you'll have to make virtual copies with appropriate layer masks.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[photoken]

The free Krita drawing program:
https://krita.org
has a filter (under G'MIC...Arrays and Tiles...Puzzle) that can create the effect:

scenic 004 puzzle.jpg

It's got options to vary the shape of the connector "nubbins", too, as I did.

Best of all, you can use it as an external program in PL.

[bruce1951]

Thanks Ken. I didn't explore Krita.
However I did find what I wanted after going back to basics!!! I simply Googled 'jigsaw clip art'. Worked a treat. Sometimes I think I think too much.

I should have explained what I was trying to do. I don't actually want a jigsaw as such. I'm trying to create a composition that includes jigsaw pieces. I was being too lazy to create my own pieces.

regards

[photoken]

Hey Bruce,
This is an intriguing subject.

I experimented, and used Krita to create my own jigsaw pieces in PL:
Started with a small 640px by 480px plain white image and sent it to Krita. There I created a 4column by 4row jigsaw image and saved it with the pieces on their own layers. When it came back into PL, it was easy to copy one of the piece layers into a new document and convert it to a vector graphic:

jigsaw piece vector.png

After that, I copied that vector jigsaw piece as a layer into my image. Then it was a simple matter of using it for both a clipping layer and cutting out the image "piece", which I positioned at will:

scenic 004 puzzle piece.jpg

This was just a fast "proof of concept" experiment -- if I spent more time with this, I could have smoothed the jigsaw piece's edges, added drop shadows behind the piece and the hole, etc. ....

[bruce1951]

OK I've been playing with G'MIC within Krita. Takes a bit of adjusting. I'm yet to hit the 'save as separate layer' bit. In the morning maybe!!!

regards

[Lundberg02]

looks like fun

[photoken]

Yep, this can be a handsome effect:

Matterhorn 05 puzzle 01.jpg

[bruce1951]

I've had the best results from using G'MIC in Krita. The biggest issue is file size. I first started out with a 185meg tiff. Crashed Krita and the computer. Had to do a reboot. So then I resized back to a 25meg tiff. Worked well with a 20-30 piece puzzle. But after that things start to get out of hand memory wise again. But when done saving in Krita is a bit tricky. In the end I saved as tiff without flattening the image. Krita allows you to save each puzzle piece as a new layer. So you could get 1000 layers!!!!!

PL does fine with it but so far I'm getting some crazy layer size issues. But each puzzle piece is a separate layer and allows for all sorts of 'fun'.

So plan B is to divide a large, 185 meg, file into sections. Do each section. Then once done reassemble it in PL. Unless someone has a spare Cray computer sitting idle somewhere!!

regards

[photoken]

Hi Bruce,
Yeah, those "gimmick" filters have problems with large files and complex calculations -- the Puzzle effect takes an enormously longer time to work if you select the "Additional Outline" option, and we've already found that "Dream" paint filter is very slow....

(Sorry, but I've lent my spare Cray to the local church to use as a doorstop. )

You're right about Krita and its filters allowing all sorts of nice options. Last night I spent a while and sent a 640px by 480px plain white image into Krita and saved its 4col by 4row jigsaw as separate piece layers back into PL. Then I converted each piece layer into a vector object and optimized each vector object, also closing its path. The work wasn't difficult, but it was certainly tedious and repetitive. At any rate, all the boring prep work is done, and now I've got a single very small PLD file with 16 vector jigsaw shapes that I can copy and paste into an image if I want that effect. Because they're vector shapes, I can resize them as needed without losing quality.

[bruce1951]

Ken I started with a 25meg tiff then created a 12x10 puzzle in Krita. Each piece a new layer. Saved as tiff retaining the layers. End result was a 850meg tiff. PL wouldn't load all the layers. Even though they were there in Krita. I tried PSPx7 as well. Unfortunately I was interrupted and never saw the results. But on the surface PSP seemed to work.
The thing is I want/need the large tiff as an end product and don't want to down scale just to get 'quick' results.
So I've gone back to the 'easy' way. 185meg tiff to Krita. But don't save the results with layers. Just the puzzle outlined on the tiff. Then in PL I use the free lasso to outline and cutout each piece. Yes it's a pain to cut out each piece and save as a new layer. But I'm only cutting some of the pieces so it's not too bad.

Extra work but keeps my quality standards!!

regards

[photoken]

End result was a 850meg tiff. PL wouldn't load all the layers. Even though they were there in Krita.

Make sure you send that problem file to PL support, so they can analyze what's happening.

[photoken]

Just doing some more horsing around, this time with the 3D Body effect:

Tetons puzzle 01.jpg