December 2009 - Digital Group Meeting - Artmaster & Buzz

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The Pottery Room was packed, with 32 attending this month.

LAYER MASKS

The beginners lesson built on last month's basic layers tuition with coverage of Adjustment Layers and Layer Masks. It should be noted that whilst the former are an integral part of both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, Layer Masks are only included with the full version of Photoshop. However a small download from here re-instates this functionality into Elements for free!

ARTMASTER & BUZZ SIMPLIFIER

Our guest speaker this month was Oliver Bangham. Oliver has recently retired from Kodak and decided to spend some time utilising and promoting Artmaster software which is capable of turning digital photographs into painterly artworks. Whilst initially sceptical, Oliver's impressive images grew on us and by the end we were converts. Even Rod was becoming excited!

I have been a fan of the Buzz Simplifier Photoshop plug-in since 2002 and this is the underlying 'sieve technology' behind Artmaster. The algorithms were invented by Oliver's brother who still holds the patents for them and they work by selectively eliminating image detail based on it's size. This simplification is akin to the process that artists utilise to reduce a subject to it's essence without loss of sharpness or edge detail. The company Fo2Pix was set up to create products and market the technology but it ceased trading and the software has been unavailable for several years. Oliver now has permission from the University of East Anglia, who funded the venture, to make the software available once again as freeware, although there is currently no technical support for it.

Using Artmaster involves a series of steps to simplify, shade and colour the image, often followed by the re-introduction of local highlight and shadow detail. These steps can be fully automated or controlled manually with brush strokes. The results at each stage can be unpredictable and sometimes unattractive but are always reversible and with practice, Oliver showed that stunning images can be produced which retain the subject matter from the original but none of it's photographic characteristics. This raised the inevitable discussion about their acceptability in club photographic competitions! However, don't forget the upcoming Off The Wall exhibition on 25th January and the display boards available on Monday nights for ad-hoc print display.

Oliver kindly made two copies of Artmaster available for free distribution within the society and I will add the Buzz Simplifier and make further copies available for members. Many thanks indeed to Oliver for his time and infectious enthusiasm - everyone found the talk very stimulating and slightly subversive!

Given that technical support is not available for these products, I will also start a new topic on the APS Forum for installation and usage hints and tips.

STAMP VISIBLE LAYERS

We only had a short time for members' images this month but two useful but obscure Photoshop tricks were brought to our attention;

Having created a number of layers, it's often useful to create a single composite of all visible layers (eg to perform sharpening) without losing the original layers. This procedure is known as Stamping Visible Layers and there are a couple of ways to do this - both undocumented.

Either: Alt+Merge Visible or (...and this is news to me...) a remarkable four-key shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E. Thanks to Malcolm Cartledge for this one.

Note that in some earlier versions this overwrites the currently selected layer so it is necessary to create a new empty layer first. This can be done in the usual boring way with the Create A New Layer button or if you are feeling ambitious you can use the exciting FIVE key combination Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N plus E.

CLONE STAMP - REVERSED OR INVERTED

It's all too easy to find that the clone tool has produced a visible repeated pattern in your image which is a tell-tale give-away of repair work. Here's a great tip to create reversed or inverted cloning, prompted by a question from Paul Keene;

Photoshop: Choose Window>Clone Source then specify a negative number for the width or height values (eg just put a minus sign in front of the '100'). The Clone tool now produces a reversed or inverted version of the original source.

Photoshop Elements: The above feature is not available in this program but a work-around is possible:
- Create a layer containing the piece of image from which you wish to clone
- Flip or invert this layer
- Clone from it with the Sample All Layers button ticked.

The prize for this most obscure of tips goes to Mike Hynes!

NEXT MEETING

Thursday 7th January, Small Barn Hall.

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UPDATE FOR BUZZ ONLY.....

Buzz Pro version 3 is available to download from here. I have downloaded it, checked it for viruses and installed it, and it works fine.

This version was the expensive one with lots of additional effects. I only ever used Simplifier One and the rest (if necessary) is better left to Photoshop.

Below is the Readme file associated with it. I have updated it with a Windows 7 fix that may be necessary for Vista too.

Cheers, Steve B
_____________________________________

Fo2PIX BuZZ.Pro V3.0
04-10-2004

=============
OVERVIEW
=============

buZZ is a Photoshop-compatible plug-in designed to turn digital photos into works of art. At the heart of buZZ is the Simplifier effect.

The Simplifier effect is based on patented Sieve transform technology, which "allows an image to be segmented into its component parts, in order that they may be identified, understood, labeled, and indexed." In essence Simplifier removes unimportant detail from a photo while preserving color, focus, shape and edge leaving one with an improved base image for applying other effects. You control how much or how little detail you wish to remove from the original photo by adjusting the Simplifier controls.

In addition to the Simplifiers buZZ Pro 3 includes 11 additional effects. Each of these effects was selected to build upon the Simplifier effect for creating a variety of artistic styles.

All the effects are contained in a single interface, referred to as a Stack. The Stack allows you to chose the combination of effects and rearrange their order while previewing the combination and making adjustments before committing to the effects.

When you find a combination of effects you like and would like to reuse, a Stack can be saved and reloaded for later use.
Included are 25 Stack preset files (.stk) which can be accessed by clicking ‘Load’ on the Stack interface.

=============
SUPPORT
=============

Fo2Pix filed for bankruptcy in 2007 and no longer offers software or user assistance. Support is available through the generosity of fellow-users.

=============
INSTALLATION
=============

This supercedes section 2.0 of the User Guide.

Move the entire folder 'Buzz Pro3' into the plugin folder of your image editing program. For example:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Plug-Ins
or
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements X\Plug-Ins

Re-start Photoshop and you should find Buzz Pro3 listed at the bottom of the Filters menu.

For other programs like Corel Painter, Paintshop PRO etc, consult the user documentation for third party plugin installation.

===> IMPORTANT:

This plug-in was designed for XP. It may not work under Vista or Windows 7.

Windows 7 can produce an error message 'unable to save to dat file' which results in the chosen filter settings not being saved. This can be fixed by changing the permissions for the following file;

Buzz Pro3/Data/BuzzPro.dat Right-click on this file then select Properties>Security>Edit Permissions then select Users and tick Allow Full Control. Press Ok and all should be OK.

Good luck and have fun.

[David P]

I've finally managed to get ArtMaster working (after a fashion) under Windows 7. Some of these stages may be redundant, but it is the way I did it:

Copy the Pam 2.0 folder to C:\Program Files (x86)
Open Notepad with 'run as administrator'
Without typing any text save the file as ..\Pam 2.0\com\Fo2PiX\iArt\iArt - note, no extension.
In Windows Explorer right click on ..Pam 2.0\ArtMaster.exe, select 'Properties' then 'Compatibility'.
Set the program to run in XP compatibility mode and the Privilege Level to 'run as administrator'.
Now double click on ArtMaster.exe and the program should load.

This worked for a couple of attempts but then I could no longer open a new image. I now find the only way to get images in and out of ArtMaster is to copy and paste.

It crashes every now and then and it is incredibly difficult to get anything like a worthwhile result but, maybe, I'll persevere a little longer.

[spb]

As of January 2011 the Buzz Pro 3 is still available to download from here.

Having explored Win 7 installation, here's a slight update on the advice above;

The Buzz plug-in was designed for 32 bit versions of Photoshop. Photoshop Elements (Ver 9 and earlier) is a 32 bit program and so Buzz works OK in Vista and Windows 7. Photoshop CS4 and CS5 have both 32 bit and 64 bit versions on the DVD and Buzz only works on the 32bit version. It’s perfectly OK to install both versions on one computer.

In my experience you get an error message 'unable to save to dat file' which results in the chosen filter settings not being saved (although the filter still works OK). This can be fixed by changing the permissions for the following file;

Buzz Pro3/Data/BuzzPro.dat Right-click on this file then select Properties>Security>Edit Permissions then select Users and tick Allow Full Control. Also ensure that the file is not set to Read Only under the General Tab. Press Ok and all should be OK.

Cheers, Steve.

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Those still looking for the Buzz-look may be interested to note that the Simplify plug-in for Photoshop from Topaz Labs has a Buzz-Sim preset that does a pretty good job of creating the same effect.

Cheers, Steve.