Looking for info on PSP X2 advanced features

[caledonia]

Hi, I've had PSP 5, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12 yet have never found any real info on what can be done with masks, layers, channel splitting and arithmetic. Help Topics gives you a degree of info but how to do something is not the same as what can be achieved. All the publications I've come across are aimed more at beginners and just skirt around the advanced features. I've yet to find anything online either. Any suggestions welcome, thanks

[LeviFiction]

Look at photoshop tutorials. Obviously not everything can be done in PSP that can be done in Photoshop but quite a lot can be done.

I usually recommend such tutorials because you'll see more tutorials for using these things with photos there. PSP has a lot more tutorials for web graphics and the like.

I can't really explain the possibilities well. I'm afraid I'll come off sounding like the help files and tutorials. But I can give it a go.

Masks are great for removing information from a layer without actually erasing pixels. Non-destructive is the way to go. How it can be used is more up to your imagination and what you want to do. For example if I wanted to blend two photos together, say put one guy's head on top of another guy's body, using masks allows me to adjust how much of the head is visible without actually changing the pixels. I can gain a lot more detail and blending options that way than with the eraser tool. It's also pretty cool for graduated blending options using gradients. Pretty cool for color and the like. I've used masks with gradients to create a pretty realistic depth of field effect.

These aren't the best examples but they are work that I've done personally. They all use various mixtures of layers, masks, channel splitting, and arithmetic. I find they work well on blending modes.

http://levifiction.deviantart.com/art/S ... 61581&qo=2
http://levifiction.deviantart.com/art/A ... 61581&qo=4
http://levifiction.deviantart.com/art/I ... 1581&qo=21
http://levifiction.deviantart.com/art/I ... 1581&qo=55

One example of using channel splitting is if you have blown out highlights, channel splitting would allow you to find which channel has the most detail in it (usually the blue channel) so that you can get detail back into the image. Put that channel on it's own layer and change the blend mode to lightness and you can actually get back some of that detail into the image. Wonderful if you want to fix some problems.

Also if you've got a color cast using channel mixer adjustment layer you can more closely get rid of that color.

Using arithmetic with different images, or even different channels, can offer nice filter effects. I don't have any good examples of how I used those though. But often you'll make more mistakes using arithmetic than decent manipulations if you don't know how it works. Once you know how it works, you may end up using them in places not often imagined.

Essentially, as I'm sure you know, the functions are limited but their uses are as limited as what you want to do and your own imagination. The amount of information hidden in images, and ways to bring those out are astounding.

[caledonia]

That's great thanks. My main use of PSP is for improving ... or rather salvaging my photos I have Nikon Capture NX2 which is handy for adjusting RAW photos so I use that first then finish them off in PSP but I'm never satisfied so wanted to get more into masks etc

[pdxrjt]

+1 at looking at PS tutorials. The IDEA of masks/layers etc is what you can take from them. Many (agree with L) of the things in PS can be done in PSP, but not all. With masks, layers etc, you can do some really great stuff. ps Thanks for the info on channel splitting.... never looked into that!