What Did I Do?

[white101]

Back in 2010, I had Photoshop Cs5. I used it to edit photos and create multimedia art for myself, including printing enlargements for my wall art. I wasn’t very good at PS, but I used it for exposure, repair tools, and special effects. I was somehow able to change the attached painting into an abstract image. The problem is that I never kept a record, so I have no clue what I did. I recently thought I would like to apply it to other works I've painted.

Over the years, I've changed several PCs since 2010 and no longer have the Cs5 program. I would like to find out if someone could figure out what I did, what effect was used, and if that effect could be available for me in an inexpensive software and instructions on how it was done.

I have no idea what it would cost, so I’d like some input on that.
Thanks

 

[Rich54]

I have CS5. Is the starting image you posted exactly the same one that you converted to image #2? I can get halfway there, but I can't figure out exactly what you did.

I took your first image and went to Filter>Pixelate>Crystallize. I used a cell-size setting of 200 (this setting depends on the overall size of your image and what sort of effect you like) to arrive at this:




I suspect you may have applied more than one filter. Your image #2 has a lot of small triangular shards that I cannot figure out how to replicate. I took my image that I posted above and applied a second pass of the Crystallize filter, using different settings, to get this, but it still isn't the same as yours. There are many other Pixelate and Distort filters that can make abstract shapes. Applying filters upon filters can give a lot of strange results, but they are hard to reverse-engineer.




Adobe Photoshop Elements is a less expensive, "light" version of Photoshop and has many of the same filters. A three-year license for Elements normally costs $100 but I just looked and they are having a sale price of $60. I am not familiar with any other photo-editing software.

 

[white101]

I found one more image made after the original, but I can't seem to find a way to attach it to this reply.

 

[white101]

Oops. I had to sign it to attach it. Here is the one between the original and my final one. It looks like the only thing that changed was the brighter colors. What's missing from my early ones and yours is the sharp angles. That's mainly what I'm looking for. Thanks

 

[Rich54]

Sorry, I can't figure out how to do it. I've tried every filter and layer blend mode combination I can think of, but I can't match to the latest image you posted (the intermediate step). And from there, I can't get the sharp angles and jagged shards in your end state.

Brightening the colors is easy enough using a Levels adjustment with settings like this:




But there is more than that going on in your intermediate step. Here's a side by side comparison of a small area.

• On the left is a portion of the original image (brightened). On the right is your intermediate step that you just posted.
• If you look at the green wedge shape in the center, on the left, the dark and light shades of green are soft and diffuse. But on the right, the dark and light greens are separated into very distinct areas of pure color with sharp borders. It's hard to see, but there are some distinct areas of light blue, as well. What is making that happen?
• Normally when I see something like that, I'm led to a posterization effect or possibly a Threshold adjustment with a layer blend mode that allows the colors to show through. But I can't get either of those to look like what you've got here. There are two or three different ways to achieve a posterization effect and I tried them all.
• Then I tried taking the intermediate image that you posted and getting it to the final end state with the jagged triangular shards, and I couldn't do that either. I tried just about every filter that CS5 has to offer. I suspect that you somehow used a combination of multiple filters and possibly blend modes, but I can't replicate it.
• I think I'm going to have to surrender and admit that I'm stumped. Maybe somebody else will see this and give it a shot. Sorry.

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi @white101
Hopefully, this direction helps.
I took your second image and used the Cutout Filter with the shown settings.
Appears in the direction in which you were interested.
I thought it was worth sharing
John Wheeler

 

[white101]

It doesn't solve the puzzle, but I found a subfolder with more images of the subject. You may be right, Rich. I'm pretty sure I applied more filters. The clue for me is the different dates of the images. The first image with no filters is dated 10/2010. The newer one (with shards) is dated the same day. Also, on that first day, I tried different filters, including the crystallize filter, which is the closest to the final one. I named it Pshop Cryzet, so it was PS software. I'm attaching it here. It's a little sharper than yours. I may have added one or more filters to that one to get to the final one. The final one in my first post is dated 7/16. So it was done later. I may not have been using PS by that time. I could have switched to ACDSee Ultimate. But there's nothing like the sharp angels in any of their filters.

Thanks, John, for your input. It looks like the cutout filter lost some color and vibrancy. I wonder how intense posterizing or crystallizing added to it would affect it.