Speed Effect.

[Dancing Cat]

In a story for my Grand-Daughters, I have three characters running across the desert. I would like to place a small cloud of dust and sand behind them to indicate speed, is this possible with PSP, please, if so how do I go about it?

I have attached the relevant picture.

Thank you and have a nice day.

[migf1]

It's certainly do-able, but depends on how you mean that effect to look like.

For instance, "Effects > Distortions Effects-> Wind" or "Adjust -> Blur -> Motion blur" can both help in giving a sense of speed, but they don't create a cloud

You may create "clouds" of anything, by using brushes and probably playing around with their Step and Density settings, along with the Brush Variance settings (Position Jitter % and Impressions Per Step can help if you are working with standard brush tips).

It would help if you could show an example of what you have in mind

[Jean-Luc]

[JoeB]

@Jean-Luc: You didn't explain how you did that so it's not really helpful to this reader of the topic.

[hartpaul]

Here is what I obtained :

and the Method:
1 Duplicate the image
2. Image >Object Extractor to get the moving part separated from the background. (Depending of you want the runner to appear slightly blurred or if you want the bachground to appear blurred as if doing a panned image.)
3. Adjust > Blur > Motion Blur and get a small amount of motion blur to the runner.
4. From background image crop as new image a part of the well lit sand. Turn Background image visibility off.
5. Double Click the Foreground and Stroke box and that extracted sand image will be available as a pattern.
6. There are plenty of cloud paint brush images so you find one of these and on a new transparent image draw the cloud of sand you would like. Paste that image as a new layer and then use the move / Pick tool to adjust size and location behind the runner .
7. Turn on visibility of all images .
8. Use Adjust > Brightness and Contrast > levels to get the dust cloud how you would like it.

[JoeB]

Looks pretty good, @hartpaul. And it makes the sand the trial left behind, not a cloud of different color. Not sure why you curved it but that can be adjusted by the whatever the person doing the faux animation desires. Best solution I've seen so far. And while I'm not the OP, I follow these types of threads just to learn more stuff!

One suggestion. There should also be a smaller sand dust trial behind the front foot of the animal. Just a thought....

[Jean-Luc]

@Jean-Luc: You didn't explain how you did that so it's not really helpful to this reader of the topic.

Sorry. I was interrupted.

I'm using a cartoon extracted from a comic book:

I erase the unwanted parts:

Using the Clone Tool, I complete the 'cloud':

I place the 'cloud' on the target image, erase some parts and add shadow (Paint Brush set on grey and Opacity lowered):

[migf1]

In my opinion, the easiest way is to use custom powder or dust brushes, and use the Dropper tool to sample colors from the image, while painting with the brush(es) in the areas of interest. The above links point to lots of free such brushes (they are for Photoshop but later versions of PSP can directly import them, under "File -> Import -> Custom brush" .. in earlier versions is do-able too, but it's a pain in the butt).

Following is a really quick touch-up I did, though I used a couple of brushes in the Painter|Particle Shop plugin, and I also post-edited hue, luminance, contrast, etc. In either case (Particle Shop or other custom brushes) you probably want to have your brush strokes stored on a separate layer, so you can manipulate it individually.

https://prnt.sc/10x2w68

[Jean-Luc]

If you want the dust to be sand-colored:
In the Layers Palette, right-click on the dust layer and select Properties.
Under the General tab, check Lock transparency.

Use the Paint Brush with the Blend mode set on Color (Legacy).
Select R185 G166 B149 as Foreground Color and paint on the dust cloud.

Right-click on the dust layer in the Layers Palette and select Properties.
Under the Blend Ranges tab, select Grey channel, and under "This layer" move the upper right triangle to 186.

[hartpaul]

Looks pretty good, @hartpaul. And it makes the sand the trial left behind, not a cloud of different color. Not sure why you curved it but that can be adjusted by the whatever the person doing the faux animation desires. Best solution I've seen so far. And while I'm not the OP, I follow these types of threads just to learn more stuff!

One suggestion. There should also be a smaller sand dust trial behind the front foot of the animal. Just a thought....

Hi Joe,
I was wondering about the front leg, but then realised that that leg is coming down and weight is being transferred to that leg and it will not kick up dust behind it until it becomes the backfoot and starts to lift up the dust. Also wondered if it might kick up a little dust before the front foot.