Skeletons, blurs and bevels...

[qwerty123]

1. How to skeletonize an object (to thin a line or shape to 1 pixel width) in Photoshop? This type of operation is very basic for scientific image manipulation (imageJ and such), and I wonder if there is a way to do it in Photoshop. If you are not familiar with the term, here is a link that explains it: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/HIPR2/thin.htm.

2. How to average blur (Filter > Blur > Average) non-continuous selections so the colors within EACH selection area are averaged to the average color of the area? By default Photoshop treats even non-continious selections as one selection and will average all non-continuous areas to the same value.

3. How to create proportional bevel, shadow and glow effects, so a smaller selection would have a smaller glow, bevel or shadow and larger selections would have correspondingly larger ones? By default Photoshop treats all large and small selected (or non-transparent) areas the same.

I hope some local gurus can help.

 

[Tom Mann]

Although there have been some attempts to integrate classic image processing algorithms into PS, e.g.,
http://compdent.uthscsa.edu/dig/ipt.html (ca. 1994), unfortunately, I don't think this ever gained much traction / permanance in the community.

Reindeer Graphics has been active in the forensics area for quite some time, and marketed a stand-alone product for scientific image processing, e.g.,
http://www.reindeergraphics.com/science.html , but it appears that their website is down, so I'm not sure about their status.

If there are any modern PS plugins available to perform these simple morphlogical operations, I have not heard of them.

I feel that PS is simply the wrong tool for jobs like this, and if you try to shoehorn PS into tasks like this, the other limitations of PS will quickly get in your way.

Is there no way you can incorporate ImageJ, Matlab, Mathematica or any other real programming language in your workflow? You probably already know about these, but, as an example here are some links to the skeletonize operation using these three languages:

http://imagejdocu.tudor.lu/doku.php?id=plugin:morphology:skeletonize3d:start

http://www.mathworks.com/help/images/ref/bwmorph.html

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/11123-better-skeletonization

http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-8/comprehensive-image-processing-environment/

Tom M

 

[qwerty123]

Hi Tom,

Thank you for the reply. I use imageJ and Mathematica in my workflow and get things done, but as an avid Photoshop user a year after year I can't help wondering about obvious omissions in Photoshop toolset. Such things as skeletonization, voronoi, multiple selections, HSB color mode and scripting access to kernel functionality let alone the ability to open multiple instances of the application should become part of Photoshop 15 years ago, but alas, Adobe seems to steer away from that approach (as the fate of PixelBender have illustrated)... I am a graphic designer, not a scientist, but find myself drifting away from Adobe products due to their adhearance to corporate strategies and abandonment of common sense.

Andrew

 

[Tom Mann]

+1. From the tone of your message, I figured you probably already worked with one or more of those programming languages, but I wouldn't have guessed Mathematica would be in a designer's toolkit. It's more hard-core geeky than most people can stand. Good on ya. I did a bunch of graph theoretic work using it several years ago, and was blown over by what it could do with just a few lines of code (albeit a fairly unusual syntax).

Yup, I agree completely with you that Adobe should have included all the things you mentioned in PS, or at least make it easier for individuals to write their own mathematical based add-ons. For a year or two, I thought we were finally going to get this when Adobe even released a developer's guide to Pixel Bender (eg, http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/pixelbender/pdfs/pixelbender_guide.pdf ), but for whatever reason, my impression is that they abandoned it before it even had a chance to take hold. :-( .

All the best, and drop in more frequently!

Cheers,

Tom M

 

[qwerty123]

Dear Tom,

Thank you again for all the links and the feedback. Every time I stop by the site I learn something new. There have been things in Photoshop that I have overlooked for years and I stopped to check if the items in the subject were among them. Mathematica, ImageJ, XenoDream, UltraFractal, Scriptographer open doors into design universes without end and Mathematica towers above them all. I am neither mathematically inclined nor particularly geeky, but it is hard not to see how much in return a designer can get by spending a bit of time to learn the basics of these programs. If one wants to produce the most by doing the least, then one learns Mathematica. Photoshop and Illustrator by themselves are not efficient programs (After Effects being a lot better), they accommodate themselves to people shortcomings rather than to computer strengths. The lowest common denominator is not a particularly attractive goal and I hope Adobe creative team changes its direction in the future or a competitive product will appear on the market.

Best Regards,

Andrew