[HN Gopher] Experiments in Printmaking, Part 1
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       Experiments in Printmaking, Part 1
        
       Author : chmaynard
       Score  : 52 points
       Date   : 2024-03-14 11:22 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.engineersneedart.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.engineersneedart.com)
        
       | HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
       | This shows up at a rather opportune time for me. Just last night
       | I was explaining to one of my kids that the reason I had the
       | "fancy paper" he used to make someone a birthday card was because
       | it was left over from a printmaking course a long time ago and
       | that I should start making prints again.
       | 
       | Maybe this is the kick in the butt I need to get going :-)
       | 
       | Also, what's with the 1-2-3 block in the background? Hobby
       | machinist also?
        
       | itronitron wrote:
       | Neat, might I suggest just 'posterizing' the red and yellow
       | layers instead of half-toning them?
        
         | wnissen wrote:
         | Yes, this is a really neat project. I found the halftoning to
         | be not that obvious at all, definitely noticeable compared to,
         | say a typical magazine advertisement but not, say,
         | Lichtenstein-esque. Happy to see folks using the Affinity
         | suite; as someone who likes to own software as well, and isn't
         | using it every day (or month) it makes a lot of sense to me.
         | 
         | Now what I really want to see is taking these separations and
         | making letterpress out of them. Dare I hope for that in Part
         | II?
        
       | giantrobot wrote:
       | One thing you can do to pull out only the chroma like that in
       | post is duplicate the background layer then go into the separate
       | color channels. Adjust the levels on just the channel you want
       | until you've got the definition of the shape you want. Wand
       | select the white background and then invert your selection. Undo
       | the level changes and go back to the composed duplicate layer and
       | create a Reveal mask from your selection.
       | 
       | Everything outside the selection will be knocked out. Then you
       | can adjust the levels on the composed image to get your desired
       | brightness/color/contrast. Do the same for other output color
       | layers like the yellow in this example. For the Luma convert the
       | color space to HSL and copy the Luma layer then adjust to your
       | desired definition.
       | 
       | This lets you create your "plates" for each separate color. Using
       | masks instead of blend modes on the layers will get you the plate
       | separation effect you want. Once you've got your "plates" knocked
       | out apply the mask then you can add all your other effects on the
       | layer like the halftone.
       | 
       | Switching color modes and level adjusting is also a good way to
       | do knock outs with the want selection. For instance doing a
       | selection and getting wispy components like strands of hair. Look
       | through the color channels where there's the best definition and
       | adjust levels to bring out the desired contrast. Select that and
       | then apply it as a mask to the composed RGB layer. You can then
       | paint into the mask to knock out extraneous bits outside the
       | bounds of the subject.
       | 
       | Modern wand select tools have a lot of little features like
       | adjustable sensitivity and sometimes can create masks directly.
       | But the above method tends to work well in software with
       | Photoshop 5 quality tools.
       | 
       | It's a bit easier to do all the work in post than with the
       | camera. Obviously if you _want_ to do the work optically ignore
       | the above.
        
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       (page generated 2024-03-15 23:01 UTC)