The Image Alchemist
Using Corel PhotoPaint 8's Paint Alchemy filter.
by David Wiles
If you look up the definition of Alchemy in a dictionary or
encyclopedia, you get a definition similar to this:
"An ancient art or pseudoscience that sought to turn base
metals into gold or silver through the agency of a secret substance
known by various names (philosopher's stone, elixir, grand magistry).
Today it forms the base for modern chemistry."
The Paint Alchemy filter in Corel PhotoPaint 8 is the artist's
"philosopher's stone". With a basic understanding and whole
lot of experimentation, it can turn a pretty base picture into
something really precious and special.
The filter works by applying brushstrokes onto your image to
transform it into a natural media painting. A myriad different
effects are possible, and the possibilities of customization and
creating your own unique effects are dealt with in this tutorial.
Just keep in mind that Paint Alchemy only works on 24-bit RGB images,
so 256-colour .GIFs will have to be converted to 24-bit images first.
Also bear in mind that mastering the Paint Alchemy filter will
require the use of masks, blended objects and other effects and
filters and some incredible effects can be achieved by applying
different setting to various parts of the image, but for the sake of
brevity, this tutorial will concentrate on applying the filter to the
whole image.
The Basics
For this exercise choose an image that you think will offer a number
of different tones and textures to show off Paint Alchemy's capacities.
1. Select the Effects...Fancy...Alchemy... menu
item. The following dialog box will appear: [Note the 5 tabs at
the top containing the various options - Brush, Color, Size, Angle
& Trans]
2. The Brush tab allows the selection of brushes
and modification of the number of strokes that will be applied to the
image. It also affects brush positioning and how brushes layer on top
of each other. In the top left corner the name of the brush is
displayed as well as a small thumbnail of it. The [Load]
button allows you to choose a new brush.
To select a new brush now, select the [Load]
button and choose one of the BMP files from the \Plgbrush
sub-directory. (This is the default directory where Paint Alchemy
looks first. It may be sensible to store any new brushes that you
might create in this directory to speed up access.)
Now choose the "WEAVE.BMP" for the new brush and see how it is
displayed (as a thumbnail) in the dialog. I chose this particular
brush for its uniqueness and its noticeable effect on the image.
3. Starting off simple and building up from there,
apply the filter with the following settings:
-
Brush tab
- Density: 1
- Layering: Select the Paint radio button
- Horizontal & Vertical variation sliders: 0
-
Color tab
- Brush color: Select the From Image radio button
- Background Color: Select the Solid Color radio button and choose Black
-
Size tab
- In the [Adjust] section
- In the [Control] section
- Vary brush size: No variation
-
Angle tab
- Angle: 0
- Variation: 0
- Vary brush angle: No variation
-
Trans tab (Transparency)
The results should look something like this:
Tip: Try using the SAME settings using some of the other
brushes, to see what sort of effect they can have on your image.
Creating your own brushes
All Paint Alchemy brushes are grayscale .BMP format images.
When you create your own brushes, I have found that the following
settings work.
Tip: Of course an image created in any resolution
and format can be used as the starting point for a brush, but it must
first be converted into a grayscale (256 shades of gray) image not
bigger than 128 pixels in both the X and Y size and the resolution
DPI must be 300dpi. Finally it must be saved in the .BMP format to work.
Here's how I create a brush from scratch:
1. Select File...New. In the "Create a
New Image" dialog box, use the value shown in the screen
capture above.
2. Now select the Text tool 
and click in the middle of your new image to get a text cursor. Type
the letter "T" and use the Tool Settings
rollup (Press Ctrl-F8 if it is not displayed) to select any font and
a font size of 24 points. Fill the text with black. (Click the black
palette entry in the palette bar on the right of your screen)
3. Now the text will be rendered as an object on top of
the white background. Make sure the object ( also called a floater)
is selected and merge it with the background (Ctrl-Shift Down Arrow)
or press the "Combine Objects with Background" icon 
in the Objects Docker if you have it displayed.
4. Select the File...Save as menu item and change the "Save
as Type" dropdown menu to Windows Bitmap (BMP). Type in a
name and save it in the \Plgbrush directory.
5. Now open up your sample image and select Effects...Fancy...Alchemy.
Press the [Load] button
and select your BMP brush (that you have just saved) from the list.
Keep all the settings that you set with the " WEAVE.BMP" brush, except
to set both the Brush and Background color radio buttons to "From
Image". Press OK.
 
Your results should be similar to this one.
Notice how, with each "stroke" that the brush makes, the
white area around the "T" becomes opaque and the black
letter itself becomes transparent. This applies to all brushes - the
grays in the image will become more transparent the darker they are.
Good brushes vs. Bad brushes?
If you browse through the default Alchemy brushes, you will
notice that they come in two broad categories: Stroke
or Art brushes and Design or Patterned
brushes. The latter type are basically small pictures or designs that
are used to produce multiple copies of themselves within the image. Design or Pattern
brushes, as I prefer to call them, can be used to create multiple
overlapping images within your picture. The effects can be quite bold...
 
...or somewhat subtle...
 
The results are far more repetitive and pattern-like, because the
brush used is often a recognizable or definite shape.
Stroke or Art brushes serve a completely
different function to Pattern brushes. More often than
not they are not appealing images in themselves, but the effect that
they have on the picture - not unlike a brushstroke itself - is what
gives them their particular appeal. They are often used to imitate a
particular art style - hence their name of Art brushes.
 
 
Often the brushes shape or outline can affect the final picture's
appearance quite radically. For example when I used one of the
default brushes "STDGRD.BMP", it created an image that was quite
pleasing (If you like Cubism) but it not what I envisaged.
 
Fiddling with the same brush and outlining it with a black vignette
gave the following results that I found quite appealing. (use the Effects...Artistic...Vignette...
effect to alter the brush to look like this.)
 
Once you have mastered all the subtleties of Paint Alchemy, look
around for sources of interesting custom brushes. Here are a few that
I have discovered myself:
(Using the KPT texture Explorer plugin used in the
Corel Draw 7.0 package)
 
(a Texture Fill preset called "Shockwave")
 
(a Bitmap Fill preset vignetted to get a soft spotted effect)
 
Now that I have shown you what Paint Alchemy is capable
of doing, I suggest that you leap in and start to experiment.
Develop a routine for creating and testing new custom brushes.
Preview a brush using few colored strokes on a black background.
Fiddle with the brush at various size settings. The Layering
and Transparency settings can often reveal hidden
characteristics of the custom brush. (Remember to always say those
special custom settings , using the Save As... button in the Saved
Styles area of Alchemy.)
...and don't forget to have fun... Sometimes simply the
thrill of discovery is enough to satisfy one's creative urges.
Download the complete archive of the master
picture and brushes used in this tutorial.
David Wiles is the manager of a medical faculty computer training
centre in Tygerberg, South Africa.
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Copyright © 1999, David Wiles, all rights reserved
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