Sea Eagle Intarsia - WIP

[linkshouse]

I thought it best to start a new thread for this - hope no-one minds.

This may well end up being quite a long WIP as I hope to show as much detail as possible. My initial work is at the computer and it is worth spending quite a bit of time here as any corrections/adjustments here are much easier than once you're in the workshop cutting wood.

I have been working in Photoshop laying down paths over the photo using the pen tool.

I find it is easier to reduce the opacity of the photo that I am working on first so that the paths are easier to see.

Here is a screenshot of the paths overlaid on the photo, they are bit hard to see here in black and as we are looking at the actual paths they are only one pixel wide.

The pen tool can take a bit of getting used to but it is worth the effort. To start with I just lay down the paths fairly roughly without trying too hard to get them right. Then I go over the paths using the direct selection tool (white arrow) to select and correct the individual points. The best tip that I can give here is to try and manage with as few path points as possible as it will make your curves smoother and ultimately easier to cut once you get to the scroll saw.

Next I turned off the photo layer and zoomed right in so that I could go over the paths in detail tidying up any ends that didn't meet each other properly.

After the paths were all tidied up I created a new layer above the photo layer and filled the background with white.

Then I select the brush tool and set the brush to a simple round brush with a thickness of 3 pixels and hardness set to 100%. I prefer my patterns in red so I set the pen colour to red.

Next, make sure that your new layer is selected in the layer palette (I rename my layers to keep track of them).

In the Paths palette make sure that your path layer is selected and then click on Stroke to stroke your layer with the red 3px brush.

Deselect the path in the Paths palette then change back to the the Layers palette and you should have a cut path as below.

This is where I am up to so far.

Next job is to number the pieces, add grain direction lines and decide what shade each piece will be.

This all seems a lot of work for a pattern that is for personal use but as I mentioned at the start of this post a bit of extra work here can make life much easier and less prone to mistakes when you get into the workshop.

Sorry this has been so long and I hope that it is of interest.

Regards

Phill

 

[donwatson]

Impressive stuff Phill, many thanks for this.
I use Linux OS and the free Gimp and Inkscape programmes so I will be following this very closely with an eye to copying if you don't mind.

take care
Don W

 

[linkshouse]

Impressive stuff Phill, many thanks for this.
I use Linux OS and the free Gimp and Inkscape programmes so I will be following this very closely with an eye to copying if you don't mind.

take care
Don W

Not at all Don.

I'm sure the same broad principles will transfer from Photoshop to Gimp.

Phill

 

[Claymore]

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[linkshouse]

The pen tool I'm referring to is one of the drawing tools in Photoshop and is used to draw vector paths using line and bezier curves.

Once the path has been laid down individual pints can be edited using the arrow (direct selection tool).

I don't have Corel Draw unfortunately so can't point to the equivalents but I am sure they will exist.

I have finished the pattern now, and will finish off the pattern making part of the right up tomorrow morning (I'm a morning person)

I printed off sections of the pattern on A3 paper this afternoon and sellotaped them all together and must confess to being a bit aghast at just how big it has worked out. I knew the dimensions of course but seeing it printed still came as a bit of a shock.

You mentioned using 1/2 plywood for the backing board, do you think 12mm MDF would be any good. The overall size of the pattern is around 4' x 3'

 

[Claymore]

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[linkshouse]

Hi Phill,
I will have a look in my Coreldraw manual and see if they are similar. :lol: ya think 4ft's big you should have had to lug my sodding giant kite it was 84" wide and mounted on an 8' x 4' sheet of plywood so the 12mm mdf will be perfect...make sure you use glue AND screws to fasten it on as the screws help to stop any flexing and warping.
Cheers
Brian

Are you saying to screw the individual intarsia pieces to the backing board?

Phill

 

[Claymore]

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[Claymore]

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[AES]

First off Phill, thanks VERY much for taking the trouble to post this.

Second, please DON'T apologise for it being too long, it isn't! I have Photoshop (V5, I'm too tight to upgrade) and at the same time as buying the software some years back I also bought a book for it (".... for Dummies" or something, I forget the title). That book is pretty good, but your write up is BETTER, really.

It must have taken you some time, but as I'm just about to get started on some Intarsia, and only have Photoshop, no other software like Corel, etc, the time you've spent will certainly help me reduce my learning time considerably.

I have of course book marked this thread, thanks a lot - this is an excellent example of how helpful and self-LESS the people are here.

Looking forward to the next instalment.

AES

Edit for P.S. A question if I may Phill. I happen to have a small Wacom pen (which I haven't used yet). Would this be any better than using the software pen tool in Photoshop (which I have used a few times)? And I 2nd Brian's (Claymore's) comments about producing your own .pdf patterns for sale by download.

AES

 

[linkshouse]

@Brian and AES,

Selling Patterns:
I agree about the US patterns. I really don't mind paying for them but object to paying more for postage than for the pattern. Kathy Wise has made some of her patterns available as downloadable PDF's and I have bought a few of these.

My Heelan Coo and Working Collie patterns are already available to buy on my website and I will no doubt add more as time goes on.

Photoshop Pen/Wacom:
Because of the naming I can see why one would get confused between the two but alas they are completely different.

I do have a Wacom pan and use it for sketching/painting in Photoshop (another of my hobbies - see below) but don't tend to use it for designing my Intarsia patterns as I find the mouse easier to use with the Photoshop pen tool.

The pen tool in Photoshop is a one of the tools from the tool palette and is used to add vector paths. The beauty of vector paths (for them as don't know) is that they can be resized without loss of quality. It is a very versatile tool but can take a bit of getting used to. As mentioned above I find it best not to be too precious about trying to be accurate when putting down the initial path with the pen tool. The go back and use the direct selection tool to pick and edit the individual points placed using the pen tool.

I was going to offer to add a separate post specifically on using the pen tool, but to be fair it really has nothing to do with woodworking or scroll sawing and there are lots of tutorials online so it might be best to look there. If there really is a desire here for me to write one I could perhaps put on my own website.

Sorry to anyone who might object to this digression from our main subject.

Here is a painting of a Cheetah that I did in Photoshop using my Wacom pen.

 

[linkshouse]

So, on with the WIP...

I left off having done the cutting pattern and still needed to sort out the number, shading and grain direction.

I'm a bit OCD and like to keep things tidy. In my defence it does help in the long run so...

With the Cut Lines layer active (you did rename your layers didn't you ) use the magic wand tool to select all of the area outside your cut lines, then from the main menu select Select > Inverse to invert the selection to everything inside the cut lines - essentially just the pattern.

Now select the Photo layer and click on the mask option at the bottom of the layers palette.

This will mask the sea out of the photo -

On, to the grain lines...

In the layers palette select the top layer (should be the cut lines) then click on the small folder icon at the bottom of the palette to add a layer folder/group above the Cut Line layer.

As you can see here I have done this and added a new folder which is called Group 1 (by default). Double click on the folder name to pop up a rename dialog and change the name to Grain (this is optional but I did say I was OCD!).

With your new Grain folder/group selected we can start adding the grain lines.

Select the line tool from the tools palette in the tool settings at the top of the screen set the fill and stroke colours to whatever colour you want your grain lines to be, then set the width to 1px (you'll probably need to type this value into the box) finally if you want arrow heads on the line ends click on the little gear icon and tick both the start and end boxes.

Now we can just work our way round the picture adding grain direction lines.

Here I have added the first one. It is worth double checking at this point that the grain line added has been put in the Grain folder/group that we created earlier -

All good so carry on adding grain direction lines, each one will appear as a new shape layer in the Grain folder. In my case I ended up with 173 grain lines/layers.

We're done with the grain lines now so click on the down facing arrow to close up the group, now you see why we put the line into a group.

Okay, on to the numbers.

This is bit easier (description wise anyway).

Create another layer folder/group as we did for the grain lines. Rename this group Numbers.

With the Numbers folder/group selected pick the text tool from the tools palette and set the text size to 12pt and the colour to your desired colour.

Now you can work your way round the image adding your piece numbers.

Phew! That was a bit longer description than I intended.

Apologies to anyone that is going brain numb by now but I have found when writing tutorials/guides for my clients that they tend to prefer minute step by step detail. I hope that is the case here.

I was going to go on to describe adding the shading but I think this post is already long enough.

I'll do a separate post for this later today. Then we're done on the computer and can move into the workshop, Yay!

 

[AES]

Blimey Phill, I clearly have a LOT to learn about Photoshop!



AES

 

[Claymore]

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[linkshouse]

Blimey Phill...........all i can say is one word SUPERB! what you have done here is everything and more what I have wanted to do but lacked the computer skills to do.
The Cheetah is beautiful and that alone would make a great if very difficult Intarsia (hint hint )
I personally would buy your patterns as apart from liking the designs/quality they would help the likes of me out greatly as one of the main problems I am having health wise is co-ordination of my hands and struggle to actually hold a pen let alone draw anything decent nowadays :x considering it was my job for decades and could hand draw anything.......as many of you will have noticed I have been relying on adapting the patterns of Judy Gale Roberts and Kathy Wise and I am the first to say the quality of my work has dropped pretty drastically recently so buying your patterns would keep me going. I know what your saying about getting back to actually making the actual wooden projects and less time on the computer and agree you need to carry on making them but as we have said on here Phill you do have a natural talent for the computer side and it will always be an extra skill and money making skill for ya.
Sorry for the long winded post but it really has impressed me along with Ruth who is VERY picky about design and full marks to ya! =D>

Cheers
Brian

Thanks Brian, and Ruth

ps when you say your patterns can be resized to any size? can you make them so they will print out on multiple A4 sheets instead of needing a gert big printer? also will you be offering a service for custom designed patterns (at a higher cost of course) when you have a bit of spare time :wink: ? as I know someone who has quite a few ideas but sod all chance or skill to do them.
Cheers now back to woodworking!

Sorry perhaps I was misleading. Photoshop is at heart a raster graphics program so the images (often photos are bitmaps) these cannot be willy nilly resized without loss of quality.

But, Photoshop also has limited vector graphics capabilities using the pen tool and shape layers. It is specifically these layers that van be resized without limitation. In my write up I was referring to the paths layer, once I get to the step where I "stroke" the path layer to create the cut line layer then the cut line layer is a raster graphic that has all the same resize limitations of a photo.

Hmm, are you lost yet :shock:

Sorry, it is how it is. You need to know about the difference between raster and vector graphic or none of the above make sense.

Phill

 

[linkshouse]

Ever onwards with the actual WIP, we move onto shading.

We have our numbers and grain lines in place now we need to think about shading.

Of course you don't have to do this step and can just use your own judgement in the workshop and after my last reply to Brian regarding raster vs vector graphic, I should warn everyone that my next processes get a bit heavy and can be skipped if preferred.

Okey dokey, let's press on...

You may recall right back at the beginning that I reduced the opacity of the photo layer to make it easier to see the paths as I drew them.

For the next steps I will want to have this at full opacity so for future convenience rather than just turning the opacity back up I've created a copy of the photo layer and named it onion skin (a graphics design term for a semi transparent version). Then I turned the opacity back up to full on the photo layer.

Make sure that the photo layer is selected in the layer palette and then add a new adjustment layer by selecting from the main menu - Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation.

This will add a new layer above the photo layer. Click on this layer and a setting dialog should appear as shown below. Turn the saturation right down to zero to make the photo appear black and white.

Next we'll add another adjustment layer to reduce the number of shade of grey. Again from the main menu select Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Posterize. This will add a new posterize layer above the hue/saturation layer. Click on the layer and again a setting box will be displayed. Use this setting box to set the number of shades that you want (I went with 5).

Select the Cut Lines layer and duplicate it, rename it shades.

With the Shades layer selected selected zoom in to show more detail and then select the Fill tool (paint bucket) from the tools palette.

Now you need to use your own judgement a bit to set the shade for each piece.

Move your mouse over a piece and alt click on what you consider to be the largest colour within that piece, this will set the paint bucket to his colour. Next left click within the piece to fill it with this colour.

Work your way through the rest of the pieces alt clicking to select the main colour then left clicking to fill it with that colour.

When you're done you should have something like this

That's it job done!

As I said at the start if this section, this may be a step too far for some and is definitely not necessary if you prefer to just select the wood you use based on the photo.

Phew! we've finally got there. Pattern finished and ready to move to the workshop.

Well more or less. In this case because the project is so big (well way bigger than my printer anyway) I need to print it off in lots and lots of sections. In Photoshop this is fairly easy as, in the print dialog you can set the print size to 100% then drag the visible image (letterbox view of the image) around and print bits of the image separately.

If you've stuck with me so far, thank you for reading.

Hopefully the workshop bit should bit a lighter reading.

Regards

Phill

 

[Claymore]

.......

 

[AES]

I have little more to say Phill, except to say that my gob is well and truly smacked! I already "knew" that Photoshop is "powerful", but now - once again - your explanation is SO much clearer than my book.

Just as matter of interest, I assume that you're using the "professional" (= very expensive) version of PS, whereas mine is the "light" version (it's officially called "Photoshop Elements 5"). From the little (apart from photo tweaks for reports, etc) that I've done with it so far, it seems that all your steps in the above posts are there in my PS - they certainly look familiar anyway. So am I correct that when I do get round to "doctoring" my aeroplane picture I can follow your tutorial 1:1 with my PS version?

Once again, all the above work by your good self cannot have been a "5 minutes breeze through the park" so thanks for your efforts. Here's one who is VERY grateful to you.

=D> =D> =D> =D>

AES

 

[donwatson]

Thanks for this Phill. You have put a lot of work in here.

Don W

 

[linkshouse]

I have little more to say Phill, except to say that my gob is well and truly smacked! I already "knew" that Photoshop is "powerful", but now - once again - your explanation is SO much clearer than my book.

Just as matter of interest, I assume that you're using the "professional" (= very expensive) version of PS, whereas mine is the "light" version (it's officially called "Photoshop Elements 5"). From the little (apart from photo tweaks for reports, etc) that I've done with it so far, it seems that all your steps in the above posts are there in my PS - they certainly look familiar anyway. So am I correct that when I do get round to "doctoring" my aeroplane picture I can follow your tutorial 1:1 with my PS version?

Once again, all the above work by your good self cannot have been a "5 minutes breeze through the park" so thanks for your efforts. Here's one who is VERY grateful to you.

=D> =D> =D> =D>

AES

Thank you.

As to software version, yes I am using the latest version of Photoshop as I have the subscription version (Photoshop CC). This is the most cost effective for me as it is only £8.47 per month and guarantees that I am alway bang up to date.

I have never used Photoshop Elements but would have thought that it would have had pretty much all the same tools with the possible exception of the adjustment layers and, as per my write up, that sequence is optional anyway.

If you should run into any specific problems or have any queries feel free to either PM me or ask here and I'll help if I can. This goes for anyone else on this forum too of course.

Phill