Quickest way to achieve this in PSP 8?

[terrypin]

Using PSP 8 I want to thicken the profile line shown here:



and at a zoomed level:



so that it looks more like this (which I did tediously and rather clumsily with the paintbrush):



Can anyone recommend a way to automate this reliably please?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[LeviFiction]

For automation, first duplicate the layer so you can remove any unwanted changes.

Under the Effects menu you should have an "Edge" effects option. Use the "Find All" command. It'll thicken all of the lines. Including the compression artifacts.

Then use "Threshold" to get rid of the artifacts.

That should get you a thicker line.

[terrypin]

Thanks, I'll try that in the morning.

Won't it thicken the other lines too though?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[LeviFiction]

That's why I said to do it on a duplicate layer. You can erase the other lines. And technically you'd only have to replace the numbers if you don't mind the side lines being thicker.

[terrypin]

Perhaps I've misunderstood your instructions but I don't see how that achieves what I'm trying to do?

This is the result of applying Effects > Edge Effects > Find All



Perhaps you meant Effects > Edge Effects > Erode ? That gives this:



If I repeat that but with just the area inside the frame selected that gives this:



That's the most promising approach so far, but leaves me with the task of cleaning it up.

I'm wondering if alternatively there's a way to duplicate just the original profile line and displace it fractionally above or below the original? But that needs some way to select just the line and not all the messy adjacent pixels.

Note that the target image I showed had already been processed to get close to the result I wanted except for the all important irregular profile line. So I don't want other lines further affected. FYI the original looked like this:




--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[LindaSue]

Edge Effects > Find All works differently in PSP8 than in later versions for some reason. I ran into this when trying a tutorial once.

[LeviFiction]

Well, without the background bars you could select the inner portion of the graph. Copy it. Then, make sure you have White setup as your background color, do a "Paste as Transparent Selection." This will let you position the selection slightly above the current line. And you can do it again and position it slightly below the line as well.

IF you find that doesn't work, you can promote the select to two new layers (to keep their place). Change their blend modes to Multiply to get rid of the white. THen position each layer where you want.

[terrypin]

Thanks!

At first both methods left me with a mess of pixels to remove, but then I added the obvious initial step of maximising contrast. That got rid of the 'aliasing' and/or JPG artifacts or whatever they're called in my original image. (It changed my green line to black but that's easy to fix later.) Your methods then got me the result I wanted. I'd never before used either 'Paste as transparent' or the Multiply mode (or any mode apart form Normal), so that's a very useful lesson.

On balance I preferred the Multiply mode method. I had to zoom considerably to make the selection inside the box and with the first method it was then difficult to position the paste. Although the mode method re-introduced some unwanted shaded pixels around the line, these proved reasonably easy to remove.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I

[photodrawken]

Does PSP8 have the Pen tool? If so, simply click along the original line to create a new vector line on its own layer:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[terrypin]

Thanks Ken, hadn't tried that but it could well be a possible alternative. But how long did it take you? From this test with the first 2 miles (which took me about 45 seconds, but I reckon I could improve on that) I'd estimate the whole line would take me 3 or 4 minutes, assuming I was trying to maintain accuracy.

That's still a lot faster than using the paintbrush - and very much more accurate. But not as fast and elegant as the 'automation' methods.



Were there any special settings of the pen I should have used?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[photodrawken]

Hi Terry,
Using the small "complete" image you posted, it took me about 2 minutes to do the whole line. No special settings, just made sure that "Connect segments" was checked, the colour was set to a green, then I zoomed in on it and kept clicking away.

I can't imagine all the rigamarole of the "automation" methods, including cleanup and re-colouring the line would be faster....

I always like to separate the components of an image like this one so that I can easily modify them. For example, having the line as a vector on its own layer allowed me to duplicate it, change its colour to red and use a rectangular mask to only show the area above the 500-foot altitude to emphasize that:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

For the sake of experimentation (and completeness), I re-created the entire darn thing with numbers, labels, lines and title on their own separate layers as vector objects. Since it's a relatively simple graph, it only took about an hour. Then I went nuts tarting it up.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

That's just a sample (appropriate for a report cover, brochure or Web banner) to show how flexible it is to have the individual components on their own layers.

[terrypin]

Hi Ken,

Thanks a bunch, much to think about there!

For further info, the context is that I print out a map of all my walks/hikes and for those with any significant climbing I add an elevation profile like that under discussion. It starts off looking like this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/401 ... iginal.jpg
and ends up on a sheet of A4 like this:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/401 ... -Final.jpg

Note that I quickly eliminate the grey grid and replace the text, to give a starting point for the line thickening task like the one I showed earlier:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/401 ... Trying.jpg

Despite the years I've been using PSP8 I'm still not experienced with many of its features. For example, starting with that original JPG, exactly what steps would I follow to get "... the line as a vector on its own layer" please?

I'm off for lunch with my wife shortly but hopefully will experiment further with your pen method later today.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[photodrawken]

Hi Terry,
Yeah, I don't like eliminating the gridlines because that only makes the graph harder to read.

From where do you get the graph? Do you draw it yourself, or is it already drawn by another source?

Set the options for the Pen tool to "Create on Vector", then simply starting to draw the line will automatically create it on its own vector layer.

Edit:
That's how it works in PSPX5. With PSP8, you might have to first create a new vector layer and set the Pen tool to "Create on vector" -- I don't know exactly how that version worked....

[LeviFiction]

*side query, not at all helpful*
I would also like to know where this elevation data comes from. It's interesting. Also, do you take the "official" walk-ways or make your own? Part of that looks like the Broadstone Amble pathway, but overall it's a lot narrower.

[terrypin]

Thanks Ken.

Ken, LeviFiction,

My walks are captured by GPS using Memory-Map on my smartphone, an aging HTC Touch Pro 2 using Windows Mobile. I download it to Memory-Map on my Windows XP PC after I get home and save it as a GPX file. From Memory-Map's screen I capture the walk region and paste to PSP8 and add the title, statistics, etc.

As mentioned, in a minority of cases I also prepare an elevation profile using one of two methods. The one discussed so far is a feature of a program called GPS Utility
http://www.gpsu.co.uk/download.html
which lets me adjust the axes, etc.

Alterrnatively, Memory-Map itself has a similar facility. In fact it can directly display two types of profile:

1. A GPS based profile, using the data from the actual walk. As you see, this is unsmoothed, recording every twitch and satellite signal error.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/401 ... MM-GPS.jpg

2. A profile based on the elevation data in the map itself (usually the OS 1:25k), which is obviously smoother but not necessarily more accurate (for several reasons).
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/401 ... M-Elev.jpg

But although that looks good and avoids the thickening issue, neither allow me to reduce the Y-axis to sea level, which is my preference. Hence my usual choice is GPSU.

I haven't done so but you should be able to see any overlap with the Broadstone Amble in the same area from the detailed map I posted earlier:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/401 ... -Final.jpg

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK