I’m not a FX kind of guy, but as a developer I’m fascinated by the astonishing complex results you can get with simple Gradients and a Parametric Curves in Photoshop. These designs can be used as building blocks for all kind of creative needs – whether bump maps, depth maps or displacement maps, abstract design, patterns, etc.
Parametric Curves
I’ve started playing with the idea of drawing mathematically defined Curves via scripting. That is, not you adding/dragging points on a Curves window; but let ExtendScript code fetch user inputted formulas and draw the Curves accordingly. Let’s say it could be a prototype test for a future Photoshop panel.
So I’ve coded a simple script and, after a good dose of trial and error, I came up with some pretty interesting shapes:
Curves (as Adjustment Layers) I’ve drawn via scripting.
Some of them may be replicable by hand (with a good dose of patience), others can be built via scripting only. These kind of curves are normally available in Filter Forge, a Photoshop plugin for texture creation I’ve enthusiastically written about here – but are out of reach if you don’t own it.
Gradients
The above Curves have no use on real imaging but forensic and/or scientific ones (maybe – if there’s a forensic expert out there I’m all ears! The comment section is open for you), but if you put them above a Gradient adjustment layer, the fun begins. I’ll be using 16bit files (in order to avoid posterization, some of these transformations are pretty harsh), with all of the available Gradient shapes:
Available gradients in Photoshop: Linear, Reflected, Radial, Diamond, Angle
Gradient + Curves
Let’s start experimenting with a mix of Curves and Gradients. Be aware that you can mix multiple Curves and Gradients, and play with Blending modes too!
Linear
Radial
Angle
Reflected
Diamond
Combined gradients
If you start adding multiple Gradients and Curves on top of each other, you may end up with some really interesting results:
It gets addictive when you start must I confess…
What for?
I’m not the creative one, I’m just owning the hardware store providing you with the tools 🙂
That said, as the only untalented designer available on duty at the moment, I can show you just few examples to tease your creative skills. These are just building blocks, combining them the possibilities are endless.
Patterns
This is a very simple one, textured and ready to be tiled.
A: Gradient + Curves. B: Perlin noise (Clouds) + Motion Blur. C: Perlin noise + Gaussian Noise. D: Combined result.
Displacement maps
Pretty hidden in the menu, there’s the Distort – Displace filter. It requires you to open a second image (the Displacement Map), to be used to distort the first one according to the parameters you’ve set.
A: Gradient + Curves. B: Texture. C: Texture displaced. D: Combined result.
3D Depth Maps and Bump Maps
Believe me, I rarely open any 3D panel in Photoshop because I’m a 2D chauvinist, so this one is really a basic example that may make the actual experts laugh, but it’s just to give you the idea of using gradient as Depth Maps.
From the Photoshop CS6 menu 3D – New Mesh from Layer – Depth Map to – Plane
Another couple of Depth Map examples
Similarly (but with a subtler effect) you can apply those gradients as actual Bump Maps in 3D materials.
Animations
All kind of weird stuff… this is just an example of what happens if you shift Gradients (on selected channels only) when one or more parametric Curves are applied. Click on the image to launch the video.
Few examples – scripting the gradient interaction would lead to even more interesting results
Parametric Curves on Exchange!
Parametric Curves is available as a free script for Photoshop CS6 (Mac/Win) through Adobe Exchange – the new in-app, app-store panel made by Adobe itself. Download and install Exchange if you don’t already have it, then browse the Free extensions and look for Parametric Curves there. After the installation, please find it in the Filter menu. More info about the panel here.
