Wednesday, February 1, 2017

FotoSketcher 3.30 officially released

Hi all,

The new version of FotoSketcher (v 3.30) is now available. As usual, you can head over to http://fotosketcher.com/download-fotosketcher/ to download either the full (with setup) or portable 32bit versions.
If have a 64bit bit version of Windows, I encourage you to use the 64bit versions of FotoSketcher, available from the official mirror website here: https://www.fosshub.com/FotoSketcher.html

You will find a list of the new features in my previous post: http://fotosketcher.blogspot.fr/2017/01/beta-version-of-fotosketcher-330.html

I hope you will have fun experimenting with FotoSketcher :) Be creative!

All the best,

David

Screenshots of FotoSketcher 3.30:

 drag the red line with your mouse to stop any effect at x%

 when opening a source image, click in the top right corner for a large preview

in painting 10, load custom brushes (in transparent .png format)
you can also double the size of the brushstrokes (check the x2 tick box)

 if you press the END key on your keyboard, you can toggle long filenames ON or OFF

 with long filenames ON, the effect used and associated parameters will be saved in the filename

 obligatory cute red panda :)




19 comments:

OtherWay said...

Hi, fotosketcher is a great tool but I´d like to ask for consideration of one change. In early versions the filename of rendered pictures from fotosketcher put the name _fotosketcher at the beginning of the filename but you change it and place it at the end. I am experimenting with fotosketcher in the way that I´m importing picture sequence of my animation and trying to make the animation more painted as your tool fot this effect. Unfortunately using fotosketcher name at the end of the filename making the render files unsupported to various postproduction and videoediting softwares and I have to use 3rd party file rename tools and it slowing my process. Would you at least make an option to put the _fotosketcher name at the begining of the filename again? Thank you very much.

David said...

Hi Jakub,
I have good news for you. I did remember your previous request and have added this possibility.
In fact I also wanted to answer another request which was to add the effect name and parameters in the filename.
So the new feature "long filename" does both: FotoSketcher_ in front and effect name and parameters in the filename.
To enable this feature, you can either edit the fotosketcher.ini file by hand or use the secret keyboard shortcut: press the END key.
Best regards,
David

Herb. said...

Hello David,
Thanks for the new version of Fotosketcher. A great program!
An interesting innovation is the possibility to choose with Painting 10 own brushes. Unfortunately I can not go further: How exactly must these brushes (PNG) be? What is the size of the file? It would be nice if you could provide more information there ...;)
Thank you and best regards
Herb.

David said...

Hi Herb,
Thank you for your comment. The .png files used in Painting 10 need to be transparent images (with an alpha channel). I would recommend a size of about 150x150 to 250x250 pixels. You can use a great freeware utility called abrViewer (https://sourceforge.net/projects/abrviewer/) to load Photoshop .ps brushes. In the abrViewer temp directory all brushes will appear in a .png format usable in FotoSketcher. I have found that the brushes which work best are the ones with lots of small dots.
Best regards,
David

Casey Fluffbutt said...

Herb - too large a brush will slow FS right down and some don't even work properly, I've found.

800 x 800 worked well but smaller is better. I;d suggest no larger than 400 x 400.

And - it;s odd too - I have a few png brushes here - two identical ones (same size, same basic structure, just different "brush" layout) - one works perfectly, the other just draw black.

David - I've attached them in case I'm doing something wrong OR FS is..
Herb - Brush 1 WORKS.

https://i.imgbox.com/qSoW1q7i.png - #1

https://i.imgbox.com/kqrdf9Bj.jpg - #1 output image

https://i.imgbox.com/cFkYVdZn.png - #2 not working

https://i.imgbox.com/lnLv9y3F.jpg - #2 boogered image.

There are quite a few png brush images with transparency on the 'net - it's just a bit of searching then testing to see if they work.

(AbrViwer is good - but note it chokes on newer PS files)

(David - "Casey Fluffbutt" is the older posting "Casey")

Casey Fluffbutt said...

Just out of interest (sorry for the double post)

Do you remember I asked about using GPU processing in FS? I think you replied that it'd be too difficult and wouldn't offer much extra speed.

I did a silly test today:

Laptop, Intel and Geforce 870 gpu - right click in exe file to select "Intel or high performance GPU"

Now - there's No speed difference when running, but...

START - with GPU = 0 to 100% loaded in under a second.
------- with Intel (default) = 0 to 100% in some 5 seconds.

Odd, hey!? I think it;s the GPU loading into memory fast then passing the execution over to the CPU.

David said...

Hi Casey,

Thanks for your feedback. I should have mentioned that the brushes need to be black on a transparent background. I think the colors in your brushes are causing problems with my code.
BTW, I like your example image. One small tip I use a lot with the "Painting 10" effect: you'll notice that along the edge of the hill or at the top of the trees there are some smaller brushstrokes which I find not all that pleasing aesthetically.
I use the manual brush on these areas with different parameters until they look good (sorry I can't be more specific, it varies from one image to another). Here is an example in my gallery which shows that kind of correction: http://fotosketcher.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Mixed-effects.jpg

All the best,

David

Casey Fluffbutt said...

yes - I thought the colours might mess it about.

And you are absolutely right about that sky/cloud and tree tops bit - but it was only a quickie to check the brush worked, not "worked on".

I understand what you mean about the manual brushing - I do that a bit in Dynamic Auto-Painter (it also needs a little manual input).

And that picture of yours is bloody gorgeous!

(I'll try with some converted to BW and re-saved brushes)

Casey Fluffbutt said...

Again, sorry for the post bombing..

There's some oddities here.

I converted to B&W, keeping the alpha channel.

https://i.imgbox.com/fVrhsP8D.png
https://i.imgbox.com/QIluqw8h.jpg
https://i.imgbox.com/E9mA58OF.png
https://i.imgbox.com/pihl3PeT.jpg

Brush then image from the brush.

That last one looks almost "pen and ink"!

David said...

Hi Casey,

Yes, the results look funny, probably because your brushes are not standard. The parts of the brush that will be used to paint on the canvas need to be black. I have gotten the best results with scattered black dots or splatter (like http://www.fudgegraphics.com/2010/05/free-hi-res-splatter-photoshop-brush-set/) on a transparent background.

Cheers,

David

David said...

Thanks for the brushes :)

Sonya said...

how to download and use/learn about the software

David said...

Hi Sonya,

To download FotoSketcher, go to http://fotosketcher.com/download-fotosketcher/ and click on the blue link which reads "FotoSketcher full version - direct download".
Once you have installed FotoSketcher, you can head to http://fotosketcher.com/fotosketcher-help/ and look at the video tutorials.

Best regards,

David

Jane said...

Hi, David. Is it possible to use my one canvas? I so need paper canvas. Thank you for your great program!!!
Jane

David said...

Hi Jane,
Thank you for your comment :) If by "using your own canvas" you mean choosing a seamless texture bitmap (instead of one of the 10 preset textures) then this is not yet possible. However, if you are talking about printing on canvas paper, then this should be perfectly fine. However, some printers can be a bit tricky with thick paper.

XPloRR said...

Link to brushes is broken. Could you please provide a new link to the brushes. Thx!

Murat LOKMANOGLU said...

Link broken

Irfaan said...

Hi, may I ask if it is possible when using a png with transparent background to actually keep the transparent background when applying an effect on fotosketcher? When I tried import a png with transparent background on fotosketcher the transparent background became white which is hard for some post production work

David said...

Hi Irfaan,
This is a common request, alas it is not easy as all effects in FotoSketcher use 24bit bitmaps (with no alpha channel) internally. So to keep the transparent background would require a major rewrite. Sorry about that.