snowy effect
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You are viewing the Community Help Pages. They are on-line forums where people can come to ask questions about the Smart Photo Editor and all the replies and relevant information are kept in the same place.
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snowy effect
by hubbardk » Thu Dec 04, 2014 6:37 pm
Hi my name is Kelly, I have a question about the snow effect overlays, I want to know how to use them with people but make it to where the effect is there but you can see the people through it.. I don't know if i'm explaining it right!? like I ve tried and I cant get the people to be vibrant enough!? Help!
Re: snowy effect
by DennB » Thu Dec 04, 2014 7:16 pm
Just use the "erase effect" brush (upper left hand side of the effect page)
Re: snowy effect
by eadams » Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:32 pm
The Erase Effect brush is very useful, but it doesn't have an opacity slider, so if you want to leave some of the snow effect on the people in the image, you need to do a little more work. There are many ways to reduce the effect on your subjects, but the methods you should use depend on the image and the particular effect you are applying. There is no one single recipe that works every time.
If you apply the effect to the image and then select "Mask Area", you can select an area to remove the effect from. If you select the Airbrush option, you can adjust the opacity. The disadvantage of the airbrush is, it doesn't have edge detection, so the selection is always fuzzy.
My preferred method in most cases is to use the select area tool (upper right of the screen) to select the subject. Then I can choose to apply an effect only to the subject or only to the background (by inverting the selection). Once defined, you can reuse the selection in subsequent effects, which is why I like it.
I tried my method on a snowy image with people. The image is only for demonstration purposes - it is not a good image
The original image:
I applied the effect Snowy Weather 2-7 (by Arwin) with the default settings, but it is drab and the people don't stand out:
To make the people stand out more I started over and first added an effect only to the people enhancing the colors. Then I applied the snowy weather effect to the image twice. The first time I applied it only to the background and the second time to the entire image, reducing the master opacity both times to a level I liked. In the final image, the people stand out more because their colors are more vibrant and the snow effect is heavier on the background:
Now, this is only an example and not a very good one. The method you choose may be different. If you haven't already, I recommend that you review the tutorials on selecting areas and masking in the "How to" section of the forums.
Eve
If you apply the effect to the image and then select "Mask Area", you can select an area to remove the effect from. If you select the Airbrush option, you can adjust the opacity. The disadvantage of the airbrush is, it doesn't have edge detection, so the selection is always fuzzy.
My preferred method in most cases is to use the select area tool (upper right of the screen) to select the subject. Then I can choose to apply an effect only to the subject or only to the background (by inverting the selection). Once defined, you can reuse the selection in subsequent effects, which is why I like it.
I tried my method on a snowy image with people. The image is only for demonstration purposes - it is not a good image
The original image:
- Original.jpg (270.32 KiB) Viewed 15752 times
I applied the effect Snowy Weather 2-7 (by Arwin) with the default settings, but it is drab and the people don't stand out:
- Snowy weather 2-7 default effect.jpg (260.25 KiB) Viewed 15752 times
To make the people stand out more I started over and first added an effect only to the people enhancing the colors. Then I applied the snowy weather effect to the image twice. The first time I applied it only to the background and the second time to the entire image, reducing the master opacity both times to a level I liked. In the final image, the people stand out more because their colors are more vibrant and the snow effect is heavier on the background:
- Snowy weather 2-7 stronger on background.jpg (261.42 KiB) Viewed 15752 times
Now, this is only an example and not a very good one. The method you choose may be different. If you haven't already, I recommend that you review the tutorials on selecting areas and masking in the "How to" section of the forums.
Eve
Re: snowy effect
by DennB » Fri Dec 05, 2014 12:53 am
That worked well Eve. I'll have to try that method and compare simplicity and results doing it that way instead of in Sagelight.
Working from Sagelight, after retuning from SPE, the undo brush in Sagelight has 2 controls (among others), to affect the opacity, "hardness" and "pressure" and a further refinement by subtracting undo if need be, also using hardness and pressure adjustments. Makes it very easy to get just exactly what you want.
Working from Sagelight, after retuning from SPE, the undo brush in Sagelight has 2 controls (among others), to affect the opacity, "hardness" and "pressure" and a further refinement by subtracting undo if need be, also using hardness and pressure adjustments. Makes it very easy to get just exactly what you want.
Re: snowy effect
by hubbardk » Fri Dec 05, 2014 12:59 am
THANKS SO MUCH EVERYONE WHO REPLIED I WILL TRY IT OUT!
Re: snowy effect
by eadams » Fri Dec 05, 2014 9:06 am
@Kelly: I wish you good luck with SPE and would be glad to see any of your resulting artwork
@DennB: I understand why you do a lot of the tweaks in Sagelight. Although SPE can be a powerful editing tool, its quirks (such as not being able to lower the opacity of the "erase effect" brush or the masking brushes that have edge-aware functionality) have often made me rely on Photoshop for masking jobs. It took me quite a while to get the hang of the "Select Area" functionality, and only with the help of Tony (forum admin), other users and the tutorial videos. The videos by andrewb2012 helped me a lot! Nevertheless, it is quicker and easier for me to rely on other tools I have used forever, and sometimes I have to force myself to stick only to SPE. There is a lot that could be done to improve the user interface of SPE to make the program's functionality more intuitive and thus more accessible to new users.
@DennB: I understand why you do a lot of the tweaks in Sagelight. Although SPE can be a powerful editing tool, its quirks (such as not being able to lower the opacity of the "erase effect" brush or the masking brushes that have edge-aware functionality) have often made me rely on Photoshop for masking jobs. It took me quite a while to get the hang of the "Select Area" functionality, and only with the help of Tony (forum admin), other users and the tutorial videos. The videos by andrewb2012 helped me a lot! Nevertheless, it is quicker and easier for me to rely on other tools I have used forever, and sometimes I have to force myself to stick only to SPE. There is a lot that could be done to improve the user interface of SPE to make the program's functionality more intuitive and thus more accessible to new users.
Re: snowy effect
by eadams » Fri Dec 05, 2014 9:12 am
By the way, I want to express my thanks to Arwin for the lovely Snowy Weather effect. I only discovered it after reading this thread and searching for snowy effects. The effect is beautiful and very realistic looking!
Re: snowy effect
by Arwin » Fri Dec 05, 2014 1:08 pm
Thank you Eve, my pleasure, glad you like them! Here you find the topic I wrote about the snow effects.
On topic, thanks for your suggested methods Eve, that will work indeed.
To add two other options:
You can edit the snow effect and play with the Screen Merge (double click the node), here you can set the opacity of the snow layer.
And when you add a Tone node as shown in the image below, you can play with the underlying image, in this case the two people to add some more contrast for example.
When making changes in the Tone node as suggested above, be sure to click on the Effect Output node after double clicking the Tone node to edit the node, by doing this you will see the whole effect while changing anything in the Tone node.
Hope this will help to find ways to use effects in SPE!
Succes,
Arwin
(Click image to enlarge)
Example with only added some more contrast in the Tone node as suggested above:
Normal snow effect - more contrast to underlaying image
(Click image to enlarge)
On topic, thanks for your suggested methods Eve, that will work indeed.
To add two other options:
You can edit the snow effect and play with the Screen Merge (double click the node), here you can set the opacity of the snow layer.
And when you add a Tone node as shown in the image below, you can play with the underlying image, in this case the two people to add some more contrast for example.
When making changes in the Tone node as suggested above, be sure to click on the Effect Output node after double clicking the Tone node to edit the node, by doing this you will see the whole effect while changing anything in the Tone node.
Hope this will help to find ways to use effects in SPE!
Succes,
Arwin
(Click image to enlarge)
- Example.jpg (119.43 KiB) Viewed 15743 times
Example with only added some more contrast in the Tone node as suggested above:
Normal snow effect - more contrast to underlaying image
(Click image to enlarge)
- Example1.jpg (187.24 KiB) Viewed 15743 times
Check my Instagram if you have time, dedicated to my edits done in Smart Photo Editor!
Feel free to follow
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Re: snowy effect
by DennB » Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:26 pm
Thanks Arwin. I always seem to forget about editing the effects. Even if I had remembered, I don't think I would have figured it out, so thanks again for the tip!
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