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FEBRUARY 19, 2004 Synthetik Studio Artist 3.0
Image manipulation and effects As I say, the Paint Synthesizer is at the core of Studio Artist. The program is, above all, a painting application, but a painting application designed for far more than still images. Nevertheless, the Paint Synthesizer is just one component of the program. Like other graphics programs on the market, it also has its own complete suite of image manipulation and effects tools. These fall into several categories. [an error occurred while processing this directive]Image operations First are Image Operations, which have been expanded in the new release. These Image Operations are similar in some ways to what you might expect from a filter in a program like Photoshop, where you choose the effect type, set a few parameters and then hit the apply button. And some of these do, indeed, cross over with effects you'll find in other applications--blurs, sharpening, gradient effects, embossing and the like. It also includes some unique ones, geared mainly toward producing paint-like effects (Oil Painter, Watershed), color manipulation (Color Palette Map for mapping colors onto an image, Image Compressor for compressing an image's colors, etc.), simplification (such as creating cartoon effects) and other miscellaneous tools. All of the Image Operations have their own parameters, including built-in repetition, randomization, compositing modes, mix options, etc. There are 59 of these effects in total.  Texture generator There's also a built-in texture generator, which you can use to create background textures or textures that will blend in with your canvas. The Texture Generator is based on procedurals and includes five palettes of its own for adjusting parameters, ranging from the basic appearance of the texture to its evolution from one texture to the next.  Image adjustments There are also Adjust effects, which resemble, more or less, the types of image adjustments you'd find in your image editing program. But in Studio Artist, adjustments are made interactively. For example, if you want to adjust the threshold of an image, you drag your mouse on the canvas left and right until you get where you want. There are 22 Adjust categories in all, ranging from Hue Shift and White Shift to Comic Threshold and Linescreen. Here's a simple Bias/Gain adjustment in action. Warps The fourth category in the area of effects is warps. In version 3.0, little is changed about the warp styles themselves, though the way they can be animated (discussed below) has been updated with new application-wide options. Warps in Studio Artist come in 38 varieties and are applied directly to the canvas via a mouse, with tablet pressure and direction governing the overall effect. Warps include kaleidoscopic effects, mirror rotation, translation, ripples, gradients and others. Below are some examples of the various warp tools.  Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next Related sites: • Animation Artist • AV Video • Creative Mac • Digital Animators • Digital Media Designer • Digital Post Production • Digital Producer • Digital Video Editing • DV Format • Film and Video Magazine • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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