Filters
It adds spice to Photoshop. It can fulfill the
need of beginner as well as professionals. The first time user of
Photoshop can just open an image and apply filters with single click.
Professional will be more serious and can create wonders out of
it. Let us see the art, science and philosophy behind the filters.
Before we proceed further it is necessary to mention that we are
going to observe the features of the filters provided by Photoshop
only. Third party filters is another vast subject need separate
attention.
So, what is filter?
Filters are the ready-made effects grouped under
filter menu of Photoshop can be applied with single clicked either
on the entire image or a selection. Photoshop 6.0 come up with rich
variety of filters starting from artistic to digimark. In general
filters are used to add special effects to image. It can be used
for photo retouching. It is used to create realistic textures, stunning
text effects. It can entirely change the environment of an image.
Generally filters come up with the dialog box, which consist of
small preview window and preview check box. Preview window will
show the immediate effect of the filter on the image without actually
applying on it. With the help of preview check box it can be seen
applied on the original image also. Preview window provides another
good facility. It pans an image so that you can see any part of
the image and judge the effect of the filter on that particular
part. Let us check out some main filters.
Artistic
As a name suggest this filter is used to achieve
artistic effects. You can get traditional fine arts effects with
this filter. Effects resembles with natural and traditional artistic
creations created with different types of brushes, strokes, colored
papers, different styles of painting, posterized effects etc.
Filters > Artistic > Cut Out
No. of Levels : 8
Edge Simplicity : 1
Edge Fidelity : 2
Blur
It is an important filter used for photo retouching
work. Most of the time it is applied on scanned image. It is used
to soften entire or the part of an image. In the technical words
it can be explained like, it smoothens the transition between hard
edges of an image.
Filters > Blur > Radial blur
Amount : 10
Blur Method : Spin
Quality : Good
Brush Strokes
It is similar to artistic filters but more using
brush strokes and ink effects generating traditional fine art type
of output.
Filters > Brush Strokes > Angled
Strokes
Direction Balance : 50
Stroke Length : 3
Sharpness : 3
Distort
These filters takes times to apply hence require
more memory for smooth working. It distorts images and creates reshaping
effects.
Filters > Distort > Ripple
Amount : 100%
Size : Medium
Noise
This is a very popular filter among Photoshop
users. It is useful in creating textures. It adds grains to provide
the base for textures. Other filters in this groups like median,
dust & Scratches, despeckle are used extensively for photo retouching.
Filters > Noise > Add Noise
Amount : 16%
Distribution : Uniform
Monochromatic
Pixelate
It creates small cells in an image based on similar
color.
Filters > Pixelate > Facet
Render
If you want to work with light reflections, cloud
like patterns, this is the right choice. This is a powerful filter
providing different option for lighting effects and clouds.
Filters > Render > Lighting Effects
Sharpen
It sharpens the soft edges by increasing the
contrast of the pixels.
Filters > Sharpen > Sharpen
Sketch
It is similar to artistic as it creates traditional
fine art effects. It resembles much with hand drawn looks when it
is applied on an image.
Filters > Sketch > Water Paper
Fiber Length : 3
Brightness : 50%
Contrast : 50%
Stylize
It is used to create impressionistic effects.
Filters > Stylize > Diffuse
Mode : Normal
Texture
It is used to create textures. It gives realistic
look like sand, paper etc. to an image.
Filters > Texture > Texturizer
Texture : Sandstone
Scaling : 100%
Relief : 4
Light Direction : Top
Video
It is used to smoothen the images captured on
videos.
Other
This is used to create your own filters
Digimark
It is used to add digital watermark to an image
which is essential for copyright information
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