tomixArt blog

Requirements:

For this tutorial we need some software, I used ‘Apophysis’ and ‘Paint Shop Pro’ version 8, but any later version of this program or any graphics program capable of using Photoshop plugins will work too. We also need ‘Kai’s Power Tools’ 5 or the ‘Corel KPT Collection’, especially a filter called ‘KPT Materializer’.

Here we go!

1. Render some flames. My modified ‘Plastic batch script‘ delivers the best results for this usage.
   
2. In order to get a special look, you may want to combine them in Image > Arithmetic ‘Difference’ mode.
   
3. To get this specific texture, apply the filter Effects > Texture Effects > Fine Leather to the result of the merge.
   

   

4. Enhance Photo > One step Photo Fix
   
5. save the file as jpeg.
6. Effects > Plugins > KPT Collection > KPT Materializer
   
   Note the settings in the ‘Material’ window.
   I have three lights set in ’3D-Lighting’, two are white and one is light orange. This last one influences the tone of the image, so if you want more blue, set it to light blue. Note the values for ‘Brightness’, ‘Sheen’ and ‘Spread’ which are more or less identical on all three lights. Only the light orange has ‘Light Brightness’ set to 25%.
   
   In the texture window, it is important to load the same image by clicking in the black space (if there was no previous image) or on the existing image in that space.
   The ‘Environment’ preview window should be cleared at this stage.
7. Apply this one three more times
   
8. Apply Enhance Photo > One step Photo Fix again.
   
9. Run KPT Materializer twice with Environment set (load the same image by clicking on ‘Load…’ or on the black space)
   
10. Run KPT Materializer twice again without Environment set.
11. Apply Enhance Photo > One step Photo Fix again.
    
    You may want to stop here and save your image.

    If you want to continue, go on with:

12. Run KPT Materializer twice again without Environment set.
13. Adjust > Brightness & Contrast > Automatic Contrast Enhancement… or fiddle with this one manually
14. Enhance Photo > Clarify,Enhance Photo > Automatic Saturation Enhancement…
    
    Here we are. Resize to convenient dimensions and save the image.
15. Addendum: To get from here to my series ‘The Cave of Light and Wisdom’, apply the
    Effects > Distortion Effects > Polar Coordinates filter with ‘Polar to Rectangular’ activated:
    
    Then flip the image upside down.
    Since an image created with the ‘Polar to Rectangular’ process can always be tiled horizontally, you can also roll the x axis. To do this, use the filter Effects > Image Effects > Offset, activate ‘Custom’, set ‘Vertical Offset’ to 0 and ‘Horizontal Offset’ to half the image width or any other convenient value.
    

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