VECTOR PAINTINGS - User Guide VECTOR PAINTINGS. For Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019, 2018, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11. User Guide

Transcription

1 VECTOR PAINTINGS For Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019, 2018, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11 User Guide

2 CONTENTS 1. THE BASICS About the effects How the actions are organized Downloading and installing the actions in Photoshop Elements THE ACTIONS IN DETAIL The Vectorizer action The Resize image action The layers panel...8

3 1. THE BASICS 1.1. About the effects The PanosFX VECTOR PAINTINGS is a set of amazing Photoshop Elements actions that bring together two worlds: painting effects and vector graphics! You can transform your photos into impressive works of art! You can turn the photos of your friends and family into amazing cartoons! You can resize the processed images without losing on quality, and create beautiful printable posters! You can share the vectorized images on your social media / online photo galleries and impress your viewers with their distinct, artistic look! 1.2. How the actions are organized The actions are contained in a set called PFx VECTOR PAINTINGS pse. The Vectorizer is the core Photoshop action, which converts raster graphics to vectors. The EXTRAS group contains the Resize image action, which lets you resize the vector image to your preference Downloading and installing the actions in Photoshop Elements Click on the download link that was ed to you when you purchased the product, to download the zip file. Alternatively, login and click the Customer Control Panel link (at the header and footer of Click on My Downloads and finally click on the file link to download the latest version. Notice that if you purchased the product as a guest, you can t use the Customer Control Panel. To be able to download the latest product updates, simply register a free user account, using the same address you used to buy the product. Decompress the product zip file, and load the action file PFx VECTOR PAINTINGS pse.atn in Photoshop Elements. If you don t know how to load and use Photoshop actions, refer to this article: 1

4 2. THE ACTIONS IN DETAIL 2.1. The Vectorizer action The Vectorizer action scans your photo and converts it to a vector image. Load a photo, click the Vectorizer action to select it and hit the Action Panel s Play button to execute it. The action will begin by converting the photo to RGB 8 bit and flattening it. The action will then present the following message on your screen: Please read these instructions carefully and hit Continue. You will be presented with the Image Size window: 2

5 This step is essential. The value for the image width (or height, whichever is bigger) that you enter at this step, will affect the appearance of the final vector image: Smaller sizes produce graphics with more fluid, more artistic details. Larger sizes produce vectors that retain more details from the original photo. At this point, it is important to understand that the image size you define here is not the final size of the vectorized image. Vector graphics can be re-scaled freely. You will define the size of the vector image in the next action step. Below you can see an example. On the left you see a part of the original photo. The vectorized image at the center was created by changing the image width to 1000 pixels. The one on the right was created by setting the image width to 1500 pixels. Notice the difference in the details: You are now wondering: how much should you resize the image width (or height), at this step? 1500 pixels: this is your starting point. Enter a smaller value (between pixels) if the main photo subject covers a large part of the photo area, or if you want to create a vector image with more fluid, artistic details. Enter a higher value to retain more details of the original photo. 3

6 Here are some recommendations: If your photo shows a face portrait, a building, some kind of landscape, etc., you may enter a value from 1000 to 1500 pixels for the image width (or height, whichever is bigger). If your photo shows people photographed from a close distance, try entering a value from 1200 to 1700 pixels for the image width (or height, whichever is bigger). If your photo shows many people, then try entering a value from 1500 to 3000 pixels for the image width (or height, whichever is bigger). Set the image size and hit OK. The action will start scanning your photo, converting the bitmap graphics to vectors. This process may take a while, depending on the size and the details of the particular photo. 4

7 When the conversion is completed, the action will ask you to define the size of the vector image: Hit Continue and enter the preferred size. Since the image is made up of vector graphics, you can resize it freely; you can create a very large poster, or an image that you will show off in your social media accounts. Enter the preferred size and hit OK to continue. The next step sharpens the image, making the vector edges details stand out. Hit Continue and adjust the Sharpness settings. Move the Amount slider to your preference and observe the change on the preview pane: When you are done, press OK to complete the execution of the action. 5

8 The next step allows you to tweak the image shadows and highlights. Hit Continue. The Shadows/Highlights window shows up. Move the Lighten / Darken Shadows sliders to your preference. You can leave the Midtone Contrast slider as it is, because the action will create a Levels adjustment layer before it completes, which you can use to change the midtones contrast. The next step lets you tweak the image brightness and contrast. Hit Continue. Move the Brightness / Contrast sliders. Hit OK to confirm your changes and move on: 6

9 The next step lets you tweak the saturation of the colors. Hit Continue, move the Saturation slider to your preference and hit OK to confirm The Resize image action To change the image size, do not use the Image > Resize > Image Size command. Run the Resize image action, instead. Enter the new image dimensions, and let the action do the work for you. If you plan to resize the vectorized image later, save the image as a layered PSD file. You can open it the next day, and run the Resize Image action. 7

10 2.3. The layers panel The image on the right shows all layers created by the Vector Paintings actions. The actions create 3 adjustment layers: Levels Hue / Saturation Brightness / Contrast Double click the adjustment layer thumbnails to re-adjust the settings. There are also 3 different sketch layers. You can tweak their opacity to your preference (you may press the numerical keyboard keys). You may experiment with changing the blending mode and opacity of the Color layer. By default its blending mode is set to Color and its opacity is 100%. The sharpening layer is used to sharpen the vector details. If you want to re-edit the amount of sharpness, you must follow these manual steps (applicable in Photoshop Elements 15, or newer): 1. Delete the sharpening layer. 2. Right click the Vectors group and select Duplicate Group. 3. Right-click on the new group and select Ungroup Layers. 4. Select the menu command Layer > Merge Layers, or press Ctrl E (PC) or cmd E (Mac). 5. Change the name of the new layer to sharpening. 6. Select the command Enhance > Adjust Sharpness and sharpen to preference. 7. Finally, you may use the command Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Shadows/Highlights 8

11 If you have any questions or if you need any help, please use the contact form at panosfx.com, in order to get proper assistance. Panos Efstathiadis 9