Subtle image enhancement with multiple layers + filters?

I know that there are many techniques for enhancing the appearance of a given image by creating two layers, applying filters / changes to one layer and making the top partially transparent.
Can anyone point to an article, website, book, etc. that describes some of these tactics in detail? Most of what you get searching on "masking" etc. is about real compositing types of functions, not these subtler "video sweetening" kinds of things.

Larry Jordan has agreed to address this in his next newsletter (I believe). I'm told the recommended book, while very useful, doesn't actually describe this technique.
Having been tutored a bit on this, it's now clear that one such approach resembles the old photographic practice of creating a black & white mask for a color original (typically slide / positive) in order to control contrast for printing.

Similar Messages

Working with multiple layers in CS 3 ?

In order to work with multiple layers in cs3, I first need to open few images to work with,and when I open few images it only shows last image that I opened.Frist images can't be seen in workspace, and when I open new document I can't see not even one photo I opened?

try tapping the F key a few times until you get to the screen mode that allows you to see all image windows.

Trouble converting HTML with multiple layers to PDF

Acrobat has a great feature where you can convert a webpage with multiple layers into a multi-page PDF. I've run into a couple example web pages that are giving me problems:
1) Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies
https://doraimage.state.co.us/LibertyIMS::/sidr6B2n5OW4s40hEk6/Cmd%3D%24%24DF63GVEbxAIjDRp jm%3BGPZ1%3D%23k2I
I try to convert a page with 28 links to PDF's that are multi-page PDF's, but it looks like all of the pages start importing into acrobat out of order. I get page 1, page 2, then it jumps to page 6, etc... What am I doing wrong or is it something with how the site is storing the images on the server?
2) Indiana License Litigation
http://www.in.gov/apps/pla/litigation/
I'm unable to select a profession/board type from a drop down menu and successfully convert the pages contained therein from HTML to PDF. Does the 'convert multple layers' feature of acrobat not support pages that are built as a "dropdown database" type search?
Thanks!

you can use this html to pdf solution to convert multiple html layers to the same pdf

Import Illustrator File with multiple layers and sublayers as composition retaining all layers and sublayers

I have drawn a country map with multiple layers and sublayers including streets, cities, rail lines, ...
Now I want to create a template for my collegues in After Effects.
For this I want to import the .ai file into After Effects retaining all sublayers and layers in compositions and subcompositions.
When I do that, I get the first couple of layers correctly, the other ones comes in one merged composition.
What can I do, to get all layers each as a layer in After Effects?
Yours, Raphael

Illustrator only imports the first level of layers. If you have groups or paths below you need to release the groups to layers. The layers will then be stacked in order as sub layers. Then you need to move them up.
The steps are to select a layer in the Illustrator layer panel, then without selecting any specific element in the layer click on the menu in the top right corner and select release to layers. All a elements in that layer will be converted to layers. Now select them all and drag them up above the original layer. This will leave the original layer empty and put all elements in new layers.
Here's a tutorial I did a zillion years ago which uses this technique to turn a blend into a morph.
Morphing With Adobe Illustrator. I hope this helps.

Any way to work with multiple layers once map is mapped to a sphere?

I'm working on a history documentary about World War II and I have a map of the world divided into colonial empires. Each empire is a separate layer. I know how to take the world map and apply it to a sphere in Photoshop CS4 Extended.
The problem is that after this all my layers disappear and I'm left with a single layer.
I want to fade in the empires' opacity levels as the globe revolves.
How can I do this if putting the map on the sphere collapses all the layers into one?
Also, how do you turn off the shadow on the sphere? I want it the same level of brightness everywhere on the planet.
Thank you very much in advance for any helpful suggestions.
- Nick

Hi Nick,
I think you have figured out that if you want a texture map to contain layers, you need to either group the layers (and select the group), or just select all of them before selecting the 'New Shape From Layer>' command. The result difusse map will have a single name, but if you open it you will see that it has layers intact.
Fading opacity or any other keyframe attribute of a texture while the 3d model is also being animated, is a new feature to CS4. You need to open the texture and animate it so you have an animated texture applied to an animated object. I have added a quick lo-fi 4 sec. sample of what I think you're trying to accomplish. I'll attach the source PSD, so you can take a look at how I set it up.
Basically, I took your flat png file an added some layers for the country selections so I could fade them in/out. Then I animated them to fade using the layer opacity (100% keyframe at start, 0% keyframe at finish, or vied versa). I then selected all the layers and 3D> New Shape from Layer> Sphere. Now I went about animating the revolving of the sphere using 3D object position for keyframing (I went from z: -180, to 0, to +180, but you can play around with that. I'm not expert with the animation to know what works best for smooth transitions and looping if desired). The animation from the texture should 'play' at the same time as the animation of the sphere, you just need to sync the timelines when setting keyframes.
For even lighting on the sphere, you can approach it a few ways. Your best bet in this case is to go to 3D> Render Settings... and select 'Unlit' Texture' from the Face Style pop up menu. You can also remove all the lights using the 3D panel (select a light in the top half and then click the trash can icon at the bottom), and then change the Global Ambient color to White (found in 3D panel with 'Scene' selected). You could also try adding infinite lights at all the six camera views.
Cheers,
steve
joric wrote:
The problem is that after this all my layers disappear and I'm left with a single layer.
I want to fade in the empires' opacity levels as the globe revolves.
How can I do this if putting the map on the sphere collapses all the layers into one?
Also, how do you turn off the shadow on the sphere? I want it the same level of brightness everywhere on the planet.
Thank you very much in advance for any helpful suggestions.
- Nick

Help with multiple layers moving position

Hi I am new to After effects so apologies if this is a daft question.
I have a map as my main layer and I have created a text layer.I want to animate the position of the map which can easily be done.However all other layers move with the map layer.So if I move across the map all other layers moves aswell.When I want them to stay in a fixed position
I would be grateful for any help
Thanks

We can't know anything without knowing the structure of your project, what you animate exactly and so on. Layers don't automatically move in unison, that would only happen if they are pre-composed, parented or linked with expressions or your footage is a flattened file in the first place. Conversely, moving the camera in a 3D scene naturalyl would make all 3D layers respond to that camera, but not 2D layers. anyway, we realyl can't know what's going on without more info. Screenshots of the timeleine might tell a lot....
Mylenium

Final Cut Pro installed on an image interfearing with multiple LDAP Binds??

Hi guys, have an issue here a bit different from anything I have been able to find concerning binding to LDAP.
The situation is this: I am tasked with administering about 90 iMac's and 3 xServes in 3 labs in our school district. 30 of these machines have Final Cut Pro installed. Therefore I have 2 images created and successfully served by one of our xServes. The other xServe is didicated to Open Directory, and the 3rd is just a file share server. The non Final Cut Images have been applied and bound to LDAP and AD successfully, however, when it come sto the images WITH Final Cut Pro, I was only able to bind one machine to LDAP. The remainig machines tell me that the object allready exists (which it should not because these are all new machines and have never been bound, imaged, or configured in any way prior to this) and it gives me the option to "Overwrite". When I choose overwrite, it creates the machine in Workgroup Manager, but never bindes the machine to LDAP and gives me an "Unknown Error".
Now it seems to me, that this is a problem specific to Final Cut Pro. What do you guys suggest?
It is worth mentioning that we do have a vollume license for FC Pro and it is the default installation with no modifacations made to the install configuration.
I have also posted this issue in the xServe forums.

Look here - http://www.apple.com/universal/crossgrade/
And remember "Search" is your friend. This topic has been discussed ad nauseum on this forum.
K

Spry Image Slideshow with Filmstrip Layering Issue during photo transition in IE

Hi,
I finally got my slideshow working in IE, but now there is some sort of funny layering issue when the pictures transition. Has anyone had a similar problem and know the solution? My slideshow is located at www.lukesfitnessbootcamp.com.
Thanks!

I have a similar problem. I've added a note to reference your problem. I've not got an answer to date.
Cliff

Reading image stream with multiple threads

Hello folks
I thought about a model for an app I need to code and I need your opinion.
My task is to implement an application that does the following:
- Read and decode images from a stream.
- Do some image processing
- Display the resulting images in Swing window.
Since decoding is expensive and i might want to use a multiprocessor machine,
I decided to put the image reading and decoding in a different thread. from the
image processing (and maybe painting).
In the end, I thought about using 2 objects and 3 threads:
- one object that keeps the Swing window data and the image processing logic
- one object that keeps the stream connection data and the decompression logic
for the (jpeg) images
-one thread that waits for incoming events and decodes them. After decompressing
one image, it sends an event to all objects that needs the image data, in this case
this is the object that keeps the image processing logic. Therefore it updates an
image reference in the image processing logics object. The image object only
allow synchronized access by all threads.
-another thread whose logic is inside the image processing logic object takes
the current data from the image reference the first thread writes to via events
and does image processing. The result is written to another image reference within
the same object. After that, it sleeps for 10 ms or so.
-a third thread is triggered via invokeLater by the image processing thread after
it produced a result. It calls the repaint() method of the Swing control which draws
the result-image to the screen.
Do you see any mistakes or do you have better suggestions to do it?
Please let me know!
Thanks in advance!

If the file is on a diskdrive, it's likely that your program will be i/o bound and threads won't help.
Edited by: ChuckBing on Jul 2, 2008 11:32 AM

1 by 1 image slider with multiple images showing

Is it possible to do this?
http://www.patinagroup.com/

Hi
There is no direct widget to achieve this , but you can try resizing slideshow and then use different slideshow , use pin feature to fix the page position.
Thanks,
Sanjit

How do I resolve issues with missing layers when opening a Tiff file from Photoshop CS5.1?

I am downloading Tiff images from a partners website. After extracting the file and opening from Photoshop CS5.1 it's only displaying one of the original image layers. For example and image with two guys shaking hands in an office is only opening the clipped two guys and not showing the backgroud. The vendor says the files open fine on their end which leads me to believe its a download or photoshop issue. Any recommendations?

Thanks Curt... I don't think my explanation was clear. I'm downloading an image from an external webiste. The image downloads in a ZIP archive. After extracting from the Zip file, I go into photoshop and do file open. Only part of the image appears. It looks as if it's the top layer of a photoshop image but since I didn't build the image, I'm not certain it was built with multiple layers. Any ideas?

How to multiple layers in the MAP web item?

Hi experts,
I'm working on a demo with BWGIS. I encounter several problems with the MAP web item.
My demo:
QA results visualized on global (region object - e.g. Europe, Asia), country (country object) and plant level. Use geo-drilldown to navigate into the lower layers functionality to get from the global view to the countries within one region and plants within one country.
My settings:
Region is a static geo-characteristic. For region I used the cont200.shp file. Also country is a static geo-characteristic, here I used cntry200.shp. For test I used ARCGIS to draw (points) some example plants in the country shape file. I uploaded this shape file to the plant object (also static).
My success:
I'm able to display the QA results in a separate global or country view within the 3.x Web template.
My problems:
A) The map web item in 7.0 does not display any data: it looks like no link can be made between the query result and graphic although we installed the latest IGS.
B) I'm not able to drilldown from a global view to the countries within one region (doubleclick on one region in global view) within the 3.x Analyzer and 3.x Web template.
My first question is about the concept of BWGIS:
1) I want to use geo-drilldown (double-click) to navigate to the lower layers. For example in the global view I see only the QA result per region (shape file of region object) -> doubleclick on Europe, I expect to zoom in to Europe and see the QA results for all the countries in Europe (shape file of country object). How do I modell this in the web application designer?
alt. 1a: 1 map 1 layer - 1 dataprovider - underneath 1 query with region and country in the row is not allowed, so how to navigate between the two geo-relevant objects?
alt. 1b: 1 map - 2 layers (2 shape files) - 2 dataproviders - 2 queries, one with QA result per region and one per country -> in that case both will be displayed at the same time, is not what I want. How to navigate between the two layers?
alt. other ?
2) I know how to make maps with multiple layers in ARCGIS, but do I need this for BWGIS, because one layer is one shape file? So do multiple layers in the map web item correspond to multiple layers in a ESRI ArcMap Document.
More specific questions:
3) Is there a lot of experience with the map web item in 7.0, documentation and working examples? Are there known problems (I can't find anything in sap notes). Is it better to still use the 3.5 Web Application Designer for this?
4) There is very little information on SAP help, SDN and other forums about BEx Map and moreover the MAP web item. Does anyone have more documentation for me?
Thanks in advance.
With kind regards,
Rick Stoll

Hi Rick,
I am working on the same topic. I am strongly interessted in solutions to your open questions, that you pulled forward in the past.
Did you make any progress?
Thanks in advance and regards
Marcus

How to make a one-color fill images with masks in documents from our multiple layers ?

Hello everyone!
I`m to open PSD document with same layers. I need to:
1. Save the jpg file (preview) in a certain place
2. All layers with masks to make one-color fill instead of images with masks.
Thanks
This is way ?
var theLayers = collectLayers(app.activeDocument, []);
alert (theLayers.join("\n"));
function collectLayers (theParent, allLayers) {//---------------------------------------------------
if (!allLayers) {var allLayers = new Array}
   else {};
   for (var m = theParent.layers.length - 1; m >= 0;m--) {
      var theLayer = theParent.layers[m];
      if (theLayer.typename == "ArtLayer") {
           var bar = new Array;
           bar = theLayer.bounds
           l0= Math.abs(this.app.activeDocument.width - theLayer.bounds[2] - theLayer.bounds[0]);
           l1= Math.abs(this.app.activeDocument.height -theLayer.bounds[3] - theLayer.bounds[1]);
            if((l0+l1)>0) { // layer mask is set
                // delete this layer
                //create new layer
                //create new mask from array bar
                //fill selection
            allLayers.push(theLayer);
   return allLayers

I may not quite follow.
Would you mind posting an example (a screenshot with the Layers Panel visible for example) and an overview of the resulting images you want to produce?

Export multiple images with random layers

I have this texture file that has many different variations to it. (3 different kinds of pants, different hairpieces, some optional items, etc...)
What i want to do, is export it with random layers selected. (there are also folders inside, it's fine if i have to merge the folder into a single layer, but it would be better if it could treat the folders as a layer)
There are 2 layers that must always be on,
then there are 6 other layers that can be mixed and matched completely at random.
Finally: there are 3 layers that only one of them can be active at one time (if one is active, the other 2 cannot be). Those last 3 layers I wouldn't mind if i had to go through manually and remove the combinations that couldn't work, but it would be much better to have it automatic.
Is there any way to script this so that it exports all of these textures as *filename*_*variation#*.png

-the first 8 lines just make sure there is a valid document open, and if there is, find out the file path and everything
Correct.
But I cut corners, if I were more diligent I would also check for the existence of more than one layer and that the file has been saved at all (otherwise it has no path and an error occurs) etc.
-line 14 just makes sure it outputs no more than 20 images (which i find odd. the texture files are extremely small ~6.82 kb each, so loading them won't be a problem. it would be good if it got stuck in an infinite loop)
Feel free to change it to a higher number.
To create 100 files change to
for (var p = 1; p < 101; p++) {
Why is thearray2 put in thearray, but then never used separately?
The function RandomShow checks if the elements in the Array are Arrays themselves
if (theObject.constructor != Array) {
and just assumes it is a Layer if it is not an Array.
But when it is an Array the function RandomShow is run with that Arrays elements as arguments.
This is intended to enable the various rules – for example if you have two or more Layers of which only one may be visible you could put them in such an Array with minimal and maximal set to 1, which should only make one visible.
But – and again I should have included checks for this – you should not put a Layer in more than one Array.
In the example changing theArray2 to
var theArray2 = [[theLayers[0], theLayers[1], theLayers[2]], 1, 1, "no"];
would mean that 7, 8 and 9 would only be visible individually.
But as theArray2 is itself part of theArray it may be visible or not unless it is set as the baseLayer.
Or rather it would if I had not forget to check the baseLayer item for being an Array itself …
So please change the affected if-clause (should be about line 34) to
// show the baselayer;
if (baseLayer.constructor == Number) {
          var theObject = theArray[baseLayer];
// show baselayer if layer;
          if (theObject.constructor != Array) {
                    theObject.visible = true;
// run function if baselayer is an array;
          else {
                    RandomShow (theObject[0], theObject[1], theObject[2], theObject[3])
          maximal--
-baselayer is defined (but i can't find out where to input what it is, do i put it in place of the "no" on line 15?)
The function takes four arguments,
• the Array
• the minimum number of visible elements
• the maximum number of visible elements
• a layer that should always be visible identified by its place in the Array
So when invoking the function RandomShow and wanting the first layer in the Array to be visible it would be:
RandomShow (theArray, 1, 5, 0);
-for the layer array do I put in the actual layer names?
If you want to address a layer with teh name »Layer 1« by name (top level layers that is, layers in Groups are filial to the Group) you can use
myDocument.layers.getByName("Layer 1")
-If I currently have layers hidden, how would i tel it to not add those to be randomly shuffled and made visible (it was randomizing the texturemap and the other layer that is there for future reference into the compiled pngs)
Whether a Layer is visible or not is irrelevant in the curren tform of the Script, the Layers are addressed in the Array.
Introducing a check for visibility would be possible, but make the function a bit more convoluted as this would also affect the maximum number for example.
I don’t think I answered all questions, but maybe you’ve made progress on your own already and you can always post again if matters are still unclear.
Maybe the function is more complicated than it would need to be or maybe it will not be able to accomodate all your needs currently, but one could for example extend the baseLayer argument to an Array itself to have more than one element (either Layer or another Array) that will always be visible … there are still possibilities but the issue might be a bit complicated.

MULTIPLE place image import...& "save as.." multiple layers to multipage PDF

Hello,
just some suggestions I`d like to see to speed up my set up and output..
i`d like to import multiple placed images into illustrator CS4. So open dialogue box place, and multiple select images for placing.
regards output save as...
Can we output multiple layers into a single PDF in illustrator? Or multiple layers into single JPEGS from illustrator with one command instead of individually saving out each layer... would be a huge time saver for me.I create different artworks on different layers..
Currently I output each completed layer individually and then right click those outputted jpegs in their output folder and choose "combine supported files into acrobat..." to make a single acrobat file..i`d like to do this right in the illustrator "save for PDF" dialogue box. Adding something in the Save for PDF output dialogue box to save layers to one PDF as multiple pages would be a helpful time saver..
I`d also like to be able to CTRL click multiple layers and go " save as..." only those layers get saved out...

, bridge -FILE/PLACE into ai, goes to separate layers in AI as placed.
in PS, bridge/tools/ps/load files into ps layers.. CS4.
just using right click in explorer on individual PDF docs from layers saved from PS to combine to PDF. but cannot output multiple pds from layers in AI in CS4.

Subtle image enhancement with multiple layers + filters?

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