Charles A Upsdell

Creating Jade Images

Example

This is the image the following procedure will produce:

Procedure

1. Create Mask

   Create the desired image, suitable as a mask.

   Note: you must create an image much larger than you desire, because step (5) creates an image with jaggies, so you must follow step (6) or (7) to get an image with smooth edges.

   For example, this is suitable as a mask:

   

   Convert to a mask by doing “Masks, New, From Image, selecting Invert Mask Data”.

   Type Del key.

2. Convert to Jade Colour

   Paste 40C090_H, 408040_H, 00AA66_H, or another suitable colour, e.g.:

   

3. Select the Image to Work With

   Do “Layers, New Raster Layer, Layers, Merge Visible”.

   Click on all the transparent portions, then do “Selections, Invert”.

   Optional: contract selection, e.g. by 4px, and feather, e.g. by 2px, to eliminate the later jaggies.

4. Apply a Jadestone Sheen

   Do “Effects, Blur, Gaussian Blur”, setting the Radius to a suitable number. The result is:

   

   Note: the ‘suitable’ radius depends on the image size, with larger images requiring larger radii. For example, with the sample image, a suitable radius is 50; with an image 2 times larger, a suitable radius is 2 times as great. The objective is to create a gradient in which the colour set in step (2) appears in the centre, with softer colours towards the edges.

   The second image assumes that the above optional step was followed.

5. Eliminate the Transparency

   Do “Layers, Merge, Merge All”.

   Note: this results in an image with jaggies unless the option in step 3 is performed. For example, this is part of the image, blown up to show the jaggies, without and with the option in step 3:

   

6. Smooth the Edges (Optional)

   Edit the image to smooth out all the jaggies. For example:

   

7. Shrink the Image

   Shrink the image to the desired size; this also reduces the jaggies. For example: