FotoSketcher 3.00 has been a bit long in the making but your patience is now rewarded :-)
You can download the official version (with setup or standalone) here: http://www.fotosketcher.com/download-fotosketcher/
New features and changes in version 3.00:
- New Painting 10 (brushstrokes) effect
- New "invert colors" function (in the Edit menu or CTRL+I shortcut)
- Integration of the "invert colors" function in the script mode (F5)
- Improved Painting 4 responsiveness
- Cosmetic changes to the user interface (especially when the program is maximized)
- New keyboard shortcuts (left, right and up keys) to move the divider between the left and right panes. Works when the main window is focused, even if an effect is running.
Here are a couple of examples of the new effect:
Original photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevsyd/6300148573/
Have fun with FotoSketcher!
David
Absolutely fantastic! Thanks for the continous improvement!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. I'm glad you like the new version :-)
ReplyDeleteYes!!! Very Cooool!!!
ReplyDeleteI do wonder if there will ever be a plugin version, a 64bit version and/or the ability to do do RAW files.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI doubt that I will create a plugin version or add RAW file support, but there will definitely be a 64bit version at one point. However, I have so far found no improvement over the 32bit version, either in speed or memory usage.
Cheers,
David
Care to share the settings you used for the still life? Was it a mix of effects?
ReplyDeleteHi David,
ReplyDeleteGreat job with the new effect, thank you!
BTW... I think there is a problem with the home page of Fotosketcher.com, right now: the panel on the right where images used to appear remains blank (at least for me, - using Chrome).
Best,
Riccardo
-> Anon: It was indeed a mix of different parameters (only in Painting 10 though), which I applied using the manual brush.
ReplyDelete-> Riccardo: Thanks! There was indeed a glitch on my webpage. Hopefully it's solved now.
@Casey, if you read this: Can you share your settings (script) for the English landscape painting (http://i.imgbox.com/HcV0f12j.jpg)
ReplyDelete@David: Great job! It's beginning to look more and more like a "real" painting package!
As a suggestion: Can you share some scripts in a specific "Tutorial" page? Something like "Before & After."
Hi David,
ReplyDeletethere is still a problem with the home page of Fotosketcher.com, right now: the panel on the right where images used to appear remains blank (at least for me, - using Chrome)
-> Peter: Thank you. I do need to set up a proper tutorial page indeed (will do one day, I promise).
ReplyDelete-> Riccardo: I've just installed Chrome to test and my page looks OK. Can you try a cache reset (CTRL+F5 or SHIFT+F) just in case?
thank you so much, it;s great!!
ReplyDeleteabsolutely wonderful!
ReplyDeleteFor Peter: (sorry for the delay)
ReplyDeleteIf I remember rightly, all I did was invert the image then run Painting 10 with 20-80-20-130-130
I might have had the second last 130 up to about 180 (strength of effect), and the actual values don't matter too much - 20 can be 17-25, 80 = 75 to 85 (this one also increases the render time a lot, so maybe leave it at 50).
Texture 9 [] Strong.
Then run it and re-invert back to normal when it finishes. The invert seems to increase contrast and force FS to place strokes in edge-defined areas (buildings, leaves, etc).
Example, with those settings above: (yes, it took ages... worth it though)
http://i.imgbox.com/wNlIMR4o.jpg
Thank you, Andrew!
ReplyDeleteCasey, thanks for taking the time to share your process.
Casey: Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeletePainting, as creative imagination, always live in the now. So no problem with the delay :-)
The Home page is now only showing as a simple HTML page, both in Chrome and in Firefox. I'll take a screenshot and send it to you
ReplyDeleteHi Riccardo,
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know. There seems to be a problem with the theme I use and which is no longer supported. I will have to update my website.
Mate - can I make a small request?
ReplyDeleteWhen you save an image and it saves as the default name "FotoSketcher image"...
How hard would it be to read the folder you're saving to and auto-increment a number afterwards? Or maybe even have a "save format" - "default name"# or "default name"## (for FotoSketcher image01)
So you can save
FotoSketcher image.jpg
FotoSketcher image1.jpg
FotoSketcher image2.jpg
and so on, without having to manually add the 1,2,3 all the time.
Or is that just a complication?
Hi Casey,
ReplyDeleteThat should not be too hard to program. I'll look into it for the next release.
Front page works fine in Opera now (and FireFox).
ReplyDeleteThanks Casey, that's good news. I've been changing some parameters with Cloudflare, so maybe that helped.
ReplyDeleteHi David,
ReplyDeleteThe site now looks good in Chrome
Riccardo
Hi Riccardo,
ReplyDeleteThat's good news! Thank you for your feedback.
Cheers,
David
Hi, mate.
ReplyDeletethis isn't a negative comment, but I was wondering if you had a method to control "spill", when the brush bleed from one colour/area into another.
To avoid it, I found a neat tool for irfanView - "WireWorm", free, I recommend it.
Hi Casey,
ReplyDeleteYeah, the rough strokes are sometimes unwanted. I found they usually don't look too good in sky areas close to the ground, buildings or mountains. The way I try to solve this is with the manual brush (using different parameters or effects), but it's sometimes hit or miss. Thanks for the tip about WireWorm. I use Irfanview, so I'll test it.
Since you use IrfanView, a little tip for you.
ReplyDeleteOpen FS
Open Irfanview - use IV's thumbnail page to view thumbnails of a directory. (File menu - thumnails)
When you find a thumbnail of a picture you like, left click it, hold and drag it onto the FS icon on the taskbar.
Wait for Windows to pop FS to the foreground and then drop the "carried" image in.
It's like drag and drop from windows explorer but it's done from inside IrfanView, giving FS a "thumbnail browser mode" for the picture directories.
Cool, hey?
An interesting tip.
ReplyDeleteRun FS - the new painting 10.
Settings
min - 25,
iterations - 100,
abstraction - 35,
strength - 170
sat - 130 (default)
NB: differences -/+ 10 won't matter.
Save picture, open IrfanView (or your chosen paint editor, but it needs a good quality resize algorithm)
Resize to 200% and save.
The resize expands the brush areas and adds a sort-of sharpness to the edges, making the brushes look 3D.
Finished example - the original looked OK, but just check out the 3D brush effects!
http://i.imgbox.com/KBIL1vVo.jpg
(Umm... I think I already said this before.. damn my memory, sorry if it's a repeat)
Hi Casey,
ReplyDeleteThat looks great! Thanks for the tips :-)
Cheers,
David
I've updated my examples with the newer styles:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.filefactory.com/file/5ailmga3ds5z/Fotosketcher%20Examples.rar
Rar5 format, about 11 MB
Standard zip format, 11 MB
http://www.filefactory.com/file/60l9e8ez143l/Fotosketcher%20Examples.zip
28 pictures including original.
Having done this, might I suggest than new filters can replace the older (less useful) filters like bilateral/median/etc.
Larger examples (took longer to make)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.filefactory.com/file/75iwktadnpld/Fotosketcher%20Examples.zip
Hi Casey,
ReplyDeleteThank you for these beautiful examples. As you suggested I will probably replace some old (and a bit crude) effects with new ones in future releases of FotoSketcher.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI really like your program and it worked very fine! But suddenly, when I try to run a filter over my pictures, "debordement d entrier" appears always. The first 5 times it all worked well, but now nothing is working anymore. I deinstalled the whole program, but after re-installation it does not work again. When the error appears, the processing stops and does not continue after I close the error.
Hope you can help me..
Cheers, Julia
Hi Julia,
ReplyDelete"Débordement d'entier" means "Integer overflow". It could happen if you use a very large source image (try to resize using CTRL+R before running an effect).
You could also download the portable version of FotoSketcher and see if it solves the problem.
If all fails, don't hesitate to contact me here: http://www.fotosketcher.com/contact-us/
Regards,
David
I tried it with as large a resolution file as my memory would allow (with the portable version) and got this error:
ReplyDelete(Google translated) error of extended verification.
Please excuse the extra post - I tried it again after a reboot.
ReplyDeleteUp to 18000 x (whatever it was), about 216 megapixels (!!!) it worked fine, I didn't try higher.
Just out of interest, a resized larger image, worked on, then sized back to the original... gives a finer dispersal of strokes.
First of all, let me say I love your program!
ReplyDeleteI am requesting a feature I would like to see that I think would be awesome if you can do it, perhaps to scripting. A feature to ignore the original images color pallet, and change colors for each brush stroke to a different value and pallet, to give a simulated painting affect such as this following example.
http://afremov.com/image.php?type=P&id=19154
Thanks for your great work!
Hi William,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind comment. I was aware of this type of painting but it is actually more difficult than it looks to emulate. I did experiment with using a specific color palette, but so far the results have been a bit disappointing. I'm still working on it, though :-)
Regards,
David
I fear that PA's desire might be more than Fotosketcher can attain.
ReplyDeleteAfremov's work woul require an almost AI "understanding" of strokes and such - the human touch to know what colour to switch in and where.. and why.
This is the output from Dynamic AutoPainter - it uses analyses strokes to define the new image, not quite AI but it has an semi-understanding of the concepts of what to out and where.
Fotosketcher IS brilliant, but not in that same arena as AutoPainter (and a lot smaller and FREE (haha)). Nor should it be, really - there is place for both.
I use Photoshop, sometimes, but also, more often, use a free photo program called LazPaint - it has many PS features (no plugins, sadly)... both have their merits.
The same goes for FS - it has its own merits, complicating things to try to attain the human-touch-painting might be counter-productive.
http://i.imgbox.com/kZ55tVJ8.jpg
?
Still - suggestions:
1 - semi-random variation from image-derived colour values. Preferably based on larger-than-pixel size sample (maybe 5x5?)
2 - Remap colours... read image colours and semi-simplify - then swap reds to oranges, blues to yellows, etc.
3 - Simplify then complete palette exchange (what you said didn't work too well) - maybe with optional palette choices. Choosing between 3-5 options might fix the fault.
PS - the new capture thing is bloody annoying!!!!!! (It doesn't work at all in Opera)
Hi Casey,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your remarks and suggestions. I agree that DAP is in another arena. I was actually very interested when I discovered Arcimbolder (the ancestor of DAP). It gave me ideas for FotoSketcher ;)
I'm currently doing some research on various subjects around image segmentation, image analogies and image moments. I also have a new algorithm idea for a new painting effect. It still needs to 'gel' before I start coding though.
Cheers,
David