How to create "clean" bump maps?

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Hello everyone

I'm trying to create a bump map for use in 3D rendering (3ds Max). This is the diffuse map i've created:



Problem is, no matter how much i fuss around with exposure, curves, hight pass filter, this is all i'm getting:



As you can see it is very "jagged" and looks terrible when rendered. I tried to clean it, but despeckle doesn't do it.
I need something clean looking, like this one:



What is the proper way of creating this kind of bump map?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Paul]

http://tutorials.texturama.com/tut_quickbump.html

 

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Thanks Paul, but as you can see diffuse maps in those examples are very clean. Creating a bump map for them is quite easy, if just desaturating isn't enough, selecting by color can be used to improve it. With my example that doesn't work.

 

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Anyhow, after some experimentation this is what i was able to get:

1. Desaturate
2. High pass
3. Smart Blur (high quality, mode: normal, play with settings)
4. Accented Edges (play with settings until edges of bricks are accented enough, but not so much to start "eating away" the brick itself)
5. Brightness/contrast
6. Curves - first level for equalizing shades on the bricks
7. Curves - second level for pumping up contrast
8. Gaussian blur



Problematic areas will have to be manually sorted out.