OK, this is not a regular graphic program for a photography hobbyist. I added it in here because I felt that it can be of use when making special 3D graphics effects for photography as well as art image composition.
Fyre is a fractal generator for Linux and Windows. Fyre produces beautiful and soft fractals that look almost like silk and smoke. I find the output very nice and can easily add exotic and appealling touches to certain types of photo retouching work.
If used in Conjunction with a good image editor such as GIMP, Paintshop Pro, Photoplus or Photoshop, Fyre effects can be overlayed onto photographs.
Fyre can be downloaded from http://fyre.navi.cx/
In this tutorial, we will talk about using Fyre software to add special effects in a photo. However Frye is not a typical image editor such as GIMP, Photoshop, Photoplus or Corel Photopaint. For those who doesn’t know what Fyre is, it is a free software that can generate nice, silky and soft looking fractals.
Fyre was introduced in a previous post here.
OK, here’s the graphic tutorial proper.
For the tutorial, we will need an original photograph or images where we will be adding effects to it later on. The picture below is the intended original photo. Eventually, we are going to add some fractal-like swivelling 3D graphic effects around the light bulb.
The plan is this:
1. Create the basic effects using Fyre.
2. Combine the effects to the original photo using an image editor.
First, start Fyre and play with it to experiment for a desired effect. Once you are happy with the result, save the image as a png image file. The image below is an image created using Fyre. In this example, the background was set as black. Although not a hard and fast rule, setting the background as black allows for easier overlaying of 3D effect onto the base photo image.
Next, we need to put the effects together in an image editor. Our preferred program is either Photoshop, Photoplus or GIMP. This will apply to other photo-editor such as paint shop pro as well.
Firstly, bring both the fyre-created png file and the original photo image into the image editor. In this example here, Photoshop is used as the image editor.
Next, with the original photo selected, create a layer for it.
Now, copy and paste the fyre-created png into the new layer of the original photo. For the layer with the pasted effect, change the mode to ’screen’. This will enable the effect to blend nicely with the layer below.
I use the Eraser tool to remove the unwanted parts of the effects. The screenshot below illustrated the described instructions.
The following is the final image. New lighting effect has been successfully added to the photo.
That is all for this article. Thanks for reading.