User manual DIGITAL ANARCHY BACKDROP DESIGNER

[. . . ] Design your own backgrounds. Backdrop Designer manual Create beautiful material folds & other paterns in Adobe Photoshop or Elements [ from: Digital Anarchy] f/x tools for revolutionaries www. digitalanarchy. com backdrop designer : table of contents Table of Contents Overview of Backdrop Designer Works with Primatte Chromakey Support & Requests About This Manual 7 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 9 Basic Understanding of Photoshop Learn About Compositing Terms Product Registration About Digital Anarchy About Ambient Design Interface Overview Four Main Sections Texture Window Shadow Window 12 12 12 13 Texture Window Options What is a Bump Map?Two Kinds of Maps The Bend Editor 13 13 14 15 15 16 16 Preview Window Menu Bar Shadow Window Options Working With Photoshop How Backdrop Affects the Photoshop File Photoshop Properties Stay Intact Are There Any Limitations?Commands to Apply Filter Actions and Batch One Level of Undo 17 17 18 18 18 19 20 20 | create your own backgrounds 17 Can I Import a Texture? Textures Are Fixed Pixels 20 You Can Adjust in Photoshop. . . © 2007, digital anarchy : f/x tools for revolutionaries backdrop designer : table of contents Those Crazy Photoshop Terms Procedural Textures Pixel Resolution Resolution Independent File Format Does Matter Shadows Can Be Imported 20 21 22 22 23 23 21 Work at Your Target Resolution Menu Bar Tool Tip System 24 24 25 26 26 27 27 27 Render Options (arrow) Load Preset (square) Add Preset (+) Apply Button (check) Cancel Button (+) About Button (?) The Presets Three Types of Presets 28 28 29 30 30 31 31 32 32 33 33 33 34 32 31 29 28 Loading Texture/Shadow Presets Loading Combination Presets Viewing the Presets Inside the Preset Manager Managing the Presets Make Small Changes Bully Your Texture/Shadow Presets Fool the Preset Manager Create New Categories Organize Your Presets Combine Categories Where Do Presets Live?Save Project Notes Saving a Combination Preset Where Do Presets Come From? © 2007, digital anarchy : f/x tools for revolutionaries | create your own backgrounds backdrop designer : table of contents Overview of Texture Anarchy Textures are Procedural & Fractal 35 35 Texture Window Load Button Overview of Textures Transform Tools 36 36 36 37 37 37 38 39 39 40 40 41 43 41 38 37 Position Tool Scale Tool Rotation Tool Mutation Controls Mutate Level How to Mutate Mutation Options Box Blur Slider Hang Out with Mutants! Hue Slider Saturation Slider Turn off the Texture Shadow Window LOAD Button Manual Note 44 44 45 44 Transform Tools Position Tool Scale Tool Rotation Tool Mutation Controls Mutate Level 45 45 45 46 47 47 48 48 48 46 How to Mutate Mutate Options Box Blur Slider Hang Out with Mutants! [. . . ] Many of the Textures have well defined patterns which may be a bit too sharp for a background. Blurring can make the Texture appear out of focus and more in the background of your photograph. This is important for creating depth of field where there really is none. In addition, Blur set to a high value can create a new Texture that is very different from the original in subtle ways. The Mutate Options circled above are the best ones to experiment with. Without Blur, this Earth/Vordoni Plates preset is a sharply defined, rock-like image. As Blur ncreases, the Texture appears out of focus, but still recognizable as rock-like. At a high blur, it becomes a pillowy, gray pattern. No Bllur Blur of 50 Blur of 90 40 © 2007, digital anarchy : f/x tools for revolutionaries | create your own backgrounds backdrop designer : the texture window Hue Slider Hue causes the Texture to shift its colors. As Hue moves, the colors in your Texture will shift along the traditional color wheel. This is great for textures that are tones of a single color, as you can easily change them to a different base palette. There is no way to shift a single color; you can only shift around the overall color palette. For textures that are multicolored, since all the colors shift, you end up with new sets of colors. Examples of Hue shift with the preset Multi-Color/Masterpiece Dream. With Texture Anarchy [a separate product mentioned earlier in this manual] you can change specific colors in the Texture, using deeper color gradient controls and a multi-light source Lighting Editor. The artists Red-YellowGreen color wheel, off which all color palettes are formed. Hue at 0 (normal) Hue at 50 (higher) Hue at -30 (lower) Saturation Slider Saturation increases the intensity of the colors in a Texture. Like Hue, this affects all colors in the image. Moving the Saturation slider to its maximum amount will result in bright, neon colors. Setting this value to 0 will remove all color, resulting in a grayscale image. 41 © 2007, digital anarchy : f/x tools for revolutionaries | create your own backgrounds backdrop designer : the texture window This grayscale ability can be very useful for a variety of reasons: 1. This allows you to create gray-toned images, for use with Photoshop effects like Duotone, or the Displacement Map filter. By removing all color, you can clearly see the amount of contrast in your backdrop, for artistic evaluation. These backgrounds are great for black/white photography. Examples of Saturation shift with the preset Multi-Color/Icey Wood. Saturation at 0 (minimum) Saturation at 50 (normal) Saturation at 100 (maximum) Brightness Slider Brightness controls how light or dark a Texture is. Setting to ­100 will give you a black texture. Often when you adjust the Brightness of a Texture, you will need to adjust Brightness for the Shadow its working with, or vice versa. To create deep material folds, for instance, you may increase the Texture Brightness while decreasing the Shadow Brightness. We increased the Texture Brightness to compensate for an overall darkening of the Shadow. The Combination preset is Gold Moon Has Risen. Texture Brightness 0 Shadow Brightness 0 Texture Brightness 0 Shadow Brightness -24 Texture Brightness 18 Shadow Brightness -24 42 © 2007, digital anarchy : f/x tools for revolutionaries | create your own backgrounds backdrop designer : the texture window Turn off the Texture If you move the Brightness slider to 100%, the Texture will turn white and disappear. [. . . ] This doesnt happen with all Textures and Shadows. Some do scale up and down as you might expect. However, youll run into more textures that do change than dont, so its good to know whats happening. 75 © 2007, digital anarchy : f/x tools for revolutionaries | create your own backgrounds backdrop designer : troubleshooting Troubleshooting Section This section covers a few known issues and frequent questions that arise when working with Backdrop Designer. These problems have been addressed earlier in this manual. [. . . ]