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I continue to explore how to create a simplified image by making two versions and blending them together: one version mostly color, and the other mostly lines. There are so many ways to simplify, and also so many ways to make lines, and there are so many ways to blend. And that means a multitude of combinations! In this tutorial I explore a bit of that space using the same starting image, so you can see some of the variety that is possible. I show you how I made five variations.
I started with this photo from Pixabay, a source of copyright-free images.
In iColorama, to prepare the image for making the edges, I applied Effect/Blur preset 18 at low radius.
I applied Style/Edges preset 5 to the blurred photo.
Alternatively, this is Style/Edges preset 5 applied to the blurred photo, but with a smaller Size setting.
Now that we've made the edges, let's make the simplified image to blend them with. This is Effect/Pixels preset 31 applied to the blurred photo. As you explore iColorama's functionality, you will find many tools such as this one for simplifying images in interesting ways.
Now I applied Style/Water preset 9, with the texture and distortion sliders set to zero, to the Pixels 31 image.
In Effect/Blend in multiply mode, I blended the lighter of the two Edges 5 images onto the Water image, using the Lightness slider under Set to darken the edges. I also tried different opacity and feature slider settings. I positioned the top image so that there is slight offset and slightly different size.
Because there was some grunge in the Edges image, I applied a little Style/Flow preset 1 to smooth the edges, and I applied Effect/Denoise several times.
Here I used a little Effect/Raise to crisp up the edges bit. This is Variation 1.
Now let's make another variation. Going back to the original unblurred image, here is the results of applying Style/Edges preset 7.
And here is the result of Style/Water preset 9 with no texture or distortion applied to the original unblurred image, and some white edges from moving the edges slider. I decided later that the white edges may have been a mistake. But it's a matter of taste.
In Effect/Blend, I blended the edges onto the water image in Normal blending mode. You can move the opacity and feature sliders to get different amounts of blur. Again, I moved the Edges image a bit with respect to the Water image. You can see the white edges, which I don't like because they are too crisp for the water effect. You could get rid of those by applying a bit of blur to exactly those spots. This is Variation 2.
This is the same as the above, but with different blend settings. So this is variation on Variation 2.
Now let's make another variation. Going back to the Edges 7 image, I applied a little Effect/Blur preset 9 in the vertical direction, with low radius and low opacity. This is to get some softness in the edges. I chose a vertical blur to match the orientation of the lines of the skyscrapers.
In Effect/Blend, I blended the blurred edges onto the water image I made above, using multiply mode.
This is the same as above but with different blend settings. This is Variation 3.
Now let's make another variation. This time I went back to the Edges 5 edges, using the same Water image as in the above image.
The edges were very noisy so I applied Effect/Denoise several times. Style/Simplify would also work.
I used Adjust/High preset 1 with medium lightness and low sharpness.
I applied a bit of Raise for definition. This is Variation 4.
Now for another variation. Style/ET-Flow can be like Style/Edges. Here is Style/ET-Flow applied to the original Pixabay photo.
Here are my settings in ET-Flow.
To simplify further, I applied Style/Flow and Effect/Denoise.
In Effect/Blend, I blended the simplified ET-Flow image onto the Water 9 image. The because there were some reddish spots of high saturation, I used Adjust/Vibrance and reduced vibrance, which has the effect of toning the down the reds.
It's still a bit edgy for my tast, so I tried using Effect/Scrape.
The I used Style/Edges preset 1 in Multiply mode, to darken the edges.
Now I used Style/Flow to smooth everything out. This is Variation 5.
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