Tightening Up a Paint Preset using Path End Local Color Range

Today’s post talks about how to work with the Local Color Range controls in the paint synthesizer’s Path End control panel to tighten up a paint preset for better reproduction of source image details.

We’ve previously discussed several paint synthesizer editing techniques you can use to tighten up paint presets.

One post described the Local Image Range option for the Nib Masking parameter in the Paint Fill Apply control panel. Turning on this Nib Masking option automatically masks each paint nib based on a local color range value.

Another post described using the local color differencing options in the Brush Modulation control panel to tighten up paint presets for better reproduction of the source image.

Today we will discuss working with the Path End control panel to tighten up paint presets for better reproduction of the source image. Once again we’re going to work with a form of local color differencing, this time using the Local Color Range parameter in the Path End control panel.

There are 2 different parameters associated with the Local Color Range in the Path End control panel. The Local Color Range is a popup you can turn On or Off. It has an associated Local Color Range Value control. When the Local Color Range is turned on, a generated paint path will be stopped from drawing if the source image color at that path location in the paint path deviates from the starting path color by more than the Local Color Range Value.

So decreasing the Local Color Range Value will lead to tighter and tighter paint strokes that better reproduce the source image features.

The paint action sequence (PASeq) below was used to generate today’s effect. It incorporates several passes of the same paint preset.

See the full gallery on Posterous

All of the AutoPaint action steps use the same paint preset (with one minor editing change). The first AutoPaint action step has the Path End control panel Local Color Range parameter turned off (2nd gallery image above). It generates a really rough loose painting that does not reproduce the source image features very well (3rd gallery image above). This is because the individual paint strokes are overdrawing the boundaries of source image features.

I then turned on the Local Color Range parameter in the Path End control panel (4th gallery image above). I started with the Local Color Range Value set to 90. I then ran several additional paint passes, reducing the size of the Local Color Range Value for each pass (90 – 40 – 20). The final painting (5th gallery image above) now does a much better job of reproducing the source image features. This was caused by progressively tightening up the individual paint strokes so that they didn’t overdraw source image color feature changes.

Working with the Path End control panel parameter settings to tighten up paint effects generates a natural feel to the paintings, since the paint paths are tightened up, but complete paint nibs are still drawn along the individual paths. The Nib Masking approach we described in a previous post masks individual paint nibs. This can lead to a very tight reproduction of the source image, but can appear somewhat unnatural.

There are lots of different Path End control panel parameters you can work with to build different kinds of paint styles and effects.

The paint synthesizer auto-drawing model works by generating a series of individual path start locations one by one, based on the Path Start control panel settings. Each path shape is then computed, based on the Path Shape and Path Angle control panel settings. The Path End control panel settings determine when paint generation is inhibited or stopped early. The Path Application control panel settings determine how individual nibs of paint are applied to the paint path. The Paint Fill Setup and Paint Fill Apply control panel settings determine how the individual paint nibs are generated based on the current brush. The Brush Source, Brush Type,andBrush Modulation control panel settings determine the current brush.

The paint action sequence (PASeq) used for today’s post is available here.