Removing gradients caused by lighting?

[clone45]

Hello!

I have been a Paint Shop Pro user forever. I mostly use it for video game texture work, which I'm just a hobbyist. Anyhow, I tend to take a lot of photos of building walls. Often, the walls have a natural gradient on them based on where the natural lighting is coming from. Making the textures tile seamlessly (which I do by hand) is really difficult when the surface has a lighting gradient. Any suggestions on how to smooth out the gradient so the surface has a consistent brightness? Sorry if my terminology is off.

I've attached a small image that shows an example of a photo that's difficult to work with because of the subtle lighting changes on it.

Thanks!
- Bret

[teknisyan]

Hello clone45,

There are many ways to achieve this, you can try using the cloning tool in order to copy the surface that you want to the whole image.

1. On the Express Lab toolbar, choose the Clone Brush tool .
2. On the right side of the Express Lab window, adjust the controls for the Clone Brush tool.
3. On the photo, right-click the source area that you want to use to cover up the area that you want to hide.
The source area is indicated by an “X.”
4. Position the pointer over the area you want to cover up, hold down the left mouse button, and drag slowly and carefully to paint over the area with pixels from the source area.

But I'm sure the other guys here in the forum have a better way to do it.

[LeviFiction]

I don't know about better, but with a linear gradient like this duplicate the layer, mirror this layer (Image->Mirror) and adjust the blend mode to Lighten.

Only the light areas of both layers will be visible. It doesn't actually get rid of the gradient as it it will gradate toward the middle. But placed end to end they should tile slightly better.

The biggest problem is that brightness is also where all of the texture in an image is. So these light gradients are one with the rest of the appearance of the material.

The other option would be to simply use the offset effect to offset the canvas (it performs a wrap-around on the canvas) to produce the tiling effect.

The only other option I can think of is to duplicate the layer, use Image->Negative Image on it. Then use something like Soft Light blend mode or something that makes it look slightly smoother. Then use one of the blurring options to gradually blur this new negative image until that gradient is as smooth as you can make it. You might even try adding noise before blurring to remove any gradient banding.

[yottaflop]

For this particular photo, you can

duplicate layer
rotate 180 degress
set blend mode to "Darken"
move to align "lines" in image
use a soft eraser to blend images

Then you can work on seamless tiling. The tiling effect preset thing may or may not work; it might just be for organic things such as dirt and grass. Anyway, good luck.