Altering mosaic cell shape

[Toby Brown]

Hello,

I'm doing a rebrand for a university, and as they've got limited creative resource themselves we've decided to build in using pixelated images into the brand guidelines (so they won't require a professional photographer for every bit of execution).

What I'd like to do is use their logo (a simple house shape) as the shape of the mosaic filter.

I've been unable to find a way of altering photoshops default square mosaic filter shape. This might be impossible, so I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas?

Thanks!

Toby

 

[iDad]

It might take a little bit of work but if you were to razterize layer and select the pieces that you want to reshape copy and paste to a new layer you can transform that way

 

[iDad]

I am on the iPad right now perhaps you don't need to razterize create your image select your shapes then make new layers

 

[Tom Mann]

Use the custom shape feature of:
http://www.vanderlee.com/plugins_halftone.html

Set the gray level so that the house shapes are nicely spaced. Set the colors so that the interior of each little house is white, and the bkgnd is black. Put the photo u want to pixellate under the previous layer. Set the blending mode of the previous layer to multiply.

This should give close to the effect I think u want.

Later tonight ill try to put a demo together for u.

Tom

PS - There are some other adjustments that need to be made to get a good effect. Let me know if you are interested, and I'll post the settings file so you can reproduce it.

 

[Tom Mann]

Here are the results of the process I described last night (while riding home on the train - LOL)...

1. This is the direct output from the VanDerLee plugin using a custom shape, ie, a simplified silhouette of a house that I made for this demo.



2. This is the output if you put the pattern shown on a layer above the base image using "normal" layer blend mode @ 100% opacity.


3. You can get a lot of interesting efx by using other blend modes, opacities, etc. Here is the same setup as the previous image, xcept using "difference" blend mode.




Hopefully, this little example will give you an idea of what you can do with the plugin that I recommended, and is along the lines of what you were looking for.

Cheers,

Tom M

 

[IamSam]

Any of these look like something you may be trying to do?





My favorite!

 

[iDad]

I'm assuming he wants to reshape the whole logo to the shape of a house not overlay shape of house on it? OP input could be taken a few ways I guess.

 

[SomethingDesign]

It's not clear for me what he need to achieve.

 

[IamSam]

Here's how I read it........

He wants to alter all the mosaic cells, created by the mosaic filter, to the shape of the logo (that looks like a house). Which can't be done as far as I know.



edit: But in looking at this image, I did get an idea!

 

[iDad]

can be done but the selection process is going to take quite some time and countless layers. It will also lose some definition because of the transformation per section. I'm confused

 

[ibclare]

OK, since we are not absolutely sure what effect you're going for, I will give my take on it.

Make a document the size you will use most. This is just for reference. Make a house shape with the pen tool or polygonal lasso. Save the original house shape layer, then duplicate it.

Duplicate again and move the layer over using the shift key so it is lined up straight. Make sure you leave a 2 or 3 pixels between each house. Now merge those two layers, duplicate and move in the same fashion. Merge the layers including the first merged layer. Now you have a layer of 4 houses. Continue this process, moving them horizontally and vertically. Keep merging so each time you duplicate the layer, it is a bigger and bigger collection of houses. Do this until you have filled the entire document.

Next step is to go to layer effects and add a one pixel stroke, leave it at black for now. Go to the fill at the top of the layer panel and slide the fill opacity to zero. Now you will see the outlines only of all the houses.

Save this.

Go to the photo you want to add the mosaic pattern to. Right click on the layer and choose duplicate layer. Using the lower box, click the arrow and choose new. Name it. I suggest you name it a descriptive term for the photo and add MAP so you can find it easily for the displace filter effect. You will now save this as a psd.

Now bring the pattern layer into the photo document. You can drag it over or select all>copy> and paste into the photo document.

Be sure you still have the pattern layer selected. Now go to filter>distort>displace (you may want to convert your layer to a smart object so that you can easily adjust the displace settings). Start by setting the number choices to 5 and 5. The program will ask you to choose a psd and you'll pick that MAP doc. It will add the distorting effect to the house pattern to fit the contours, shadows and highlights of the photo you want the pattern to fit.

If the pattern houses are too large or too small, transform that pattern layer before you add the filter.

You can go to layer effects on the pattern layer and change the stroke color if black doesn't work.

If you want to see how this works before you make a whole page of houses, test it using the above process, but make a smaller section and see if it gets the job done.

If you need more of a tutorial, I can make one but it will take me awhile. If it were me, being so visual, I would likely want one. I made the effect but put the houses too close together and the pattern looks more like arrows then houses. That's why I said to put them a few pixels apart.



Here's with larger pattern tiles.

 

[ibclare]

I know this is kind of complicated and may not be possible to use for your needs. Maybe there is a plugin out there that will allow you to create your own filter. IDK.

If you do use the above process, I realized that the strokes leave spaces that aren't filled like the grout. A fix for that:

Instead of making filled houses and stroking them, create an inverted pattern before reproducing for the whole page. You won't need the stroke for this method, but the grout section may be too large. Anyway, I haven't hit on the perfect solution. And all that hinges on whether this is the right idea.

Don't be bothered by the time I spent if this wasn't what you are after. I was intrigued by the idea, so I am doing it as much for me as for you!

 

[IamSam]

Thanks Clare for the tutorial! This is exactly what I did in the first two images in post #6! You did a much better job and I inverted my colors!

 

[Tom Mann]

1. Sam, I really like this image of yours:
http://www.photoshopgurus.com/forum...altering-mosaic-cell-shape-mosaic-test_03.png

How did you do it? It looks great!

2. FWIW, in my previous post, I set the parameters on the VanDerLee filter to produce a large, completely regular pattern that was very easy to see, so I think the technique I described could have been interpreted as only being capable of making a simple mask.

In addition to what I posted before, this filter (quite cheap, actually) is capable of everything from absolutely conventional half-tone patterns to quasi-stochastic half-toning with "dots" of almost any shape, not just circles.

In the GIF animation shown below, I have set the parameters differently from my last example, so it now looks more like a stochastic half-tone where each "dot" is a little house whose size varies according to the scene brightness. The animation begins with the underlying image, followed by a single frame with overly large "dots" (to make it easy to see what's going on), followed by a series of frames where I show what you get with a selection of the various layer blending modes available in PS.

The OP spoke about both the mosaic filter in PS, as well as wanting to make "pixelated images". Unfortunately, he still hasn't returned to the forum, so I'm still not sure what he means by the latter, but I interpreted that phrase to mean that an image that had been halftoned would be considered. OTOH, the excellent suggestions / alternate interpretations of little houses in each pixel, a mosaic with grout, etc. are all possibilities.

My guess is that he probably doesn't know exactly what he wants, but will know what he likes when he sees it. Right now, my personal favorite is Sam's version that I cited above.

T

 

[IamSam]

Thanks Tom!

I have to run for now, but I will be back this afternoon and I will post how I created that image. It's very easy.

 

[ibclare]

Using the extrude filter might be useful in making this effect.