BBS in a Box 2/BBS in a box - Trilogy II.iso/Files/Mag/H-L/Kai’s Power Tools Article

Text File | 1993-12-11 | 13.4 KB | 235 lines | [TEXT/MSWD]

Item    1323089                         7-Dec-92        09:22PST

From:   UG0099                          New York MUG,UG

To:     UG$                             User Groups

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sub:    Kai’s Power Tools Article

Kai’s Power Tools

by Marc Silverman

   A set of 33 new filters has just been released for use with Adobe Photoshop.
Wait...strike that. What I meant to say was more like: “Whoa! I can’t BELIEVE
the coolest thing I ever saw for Digital Imaging only costs 99 bucks, will turn
casual Photoshoppers into Mega-Power users INSTANTLY, and will turn Photoshop
regulars into maniacal, sleepless, fingers-melded-into-their-keyboards, never
eat or breathe again, non-stop image factories in a matter of hours!”

   A little too strong? Nope.

   Kai Krause has been a regular participant in the Photoshop Imaging area of
America Online, contributing his knowledge and opinions on many imaging topics
for about a year now. His long time involvement in computers, programming,
music, and art is described in a biographical piece posted online, and his
specific knowledge of the concepts used to conceive and create these unique
filters goes way back, starting with his association with the music profession
in the early seventies in Germany.

   He bought his first computer around that time, an 8K Compucolor, and wrote a
BASIC program that night which rendered, as he puts it, “Recursive loops
drawing 3-D distorted space curves which were chaotic in appearance.” Kai began
a long and rewarding involvement with the artist/designer Roger Dean soon
after. “It was then, in the middle of that early design phase, that I sent out
a letter to Roger, really just as a lark. At the time I considered writing a
new version of my Paint program, in color with airbrushes etc., and figured
that he would be the ultimate Beta user for it. I had no idea if he was into
computers or not, or what he was up to, or if that address was at all valid. So
I wrote about some of this and that, and took the old Yes logo and vectorized
it into Perspective and drew an infinite plane tiled with logos, something you
can’t do on a canvas no matter how patient you are. Just to illustrate the
point about new kinds of tools, complementing traditional ones. Roger loves
Fractals, Julia sets, etc. Some of the textures in Yes logos were fractal
based. He sent back a telegram with three words: Yes, Send More. And I did.”

   Kai has posted a number of his recent album covers and other images on Ameri
Online, including new CD covers for the groups and performers Yes, Steve Howe,
Don Henley, and others. But it is his position of “Knowledge Meister” on AOL
that makes his participation there so significant to all of us who log on. Kai
mentions a very obscure film entitled “La Vallee, The Valley Obscured by
Clouds” with music by Pink Floyd. There is a phrase in it, “There is no way
back from knowledge,” that Kai has taken to heart. He has regularly posted
three- to fifteen-page guides complete with instructions, descriptions, tables,
pictures, and screen shots for Photoshop tips that go far beyond those that can
be found in any of the current books or manuals. He has uploaded 21 of these
extensive handbooks (entitled “KPT’s - Kai’s Photoshop Tips”) with catchy
titles like: All’s Well that Blends Well; Colorization...And Hue and Eye;
Algorithmic Textures...From Noise to Nice; along with “One Minute Quickies”
such as: Instant Brushed Aluminum Textures; Have a Ball...Instant Spheres; The
Top Ten List of Often Overlooked Basics; Polarizing; Instant Spirals; and many
more. And he’s offered them to us with only the hope that we’ll be able to use
the tips, learn from them, and become better at what we do. “There are no such
things as secrets in Photoshop” he has said in a message to someone who asked
about his method for creating a particular effect but was worried that his
request for the artist’s information might be too blunt. Kai’s is the attitude
of a true master, share the “tools” and let the creativity rise to its own
level.

   Kai Krause upholds his views and shares his tools with those who have become
electronic friends, compatriots and colleagues. Along with Ben Weiss, the hot
shot programmer for “Kai’s Power Tools,” Kai and his newest “tool set” push the
boundaries of imaging possibilities significantly forward. The impressive
selection of new filters contained in this set are: four Smudge filters with
options for Dark or Light, and Left or Right Smudging; three unique “Polished
Glass Lens” distortion filters to create spheres; three levels of pixel
diffractors called PixelBreeze, PixelWind, and PixelStorm; a series of Noise
filters including Maximum, Medium, and Minimum levels of Hue Protected Noise
(noise is added but the underlying colors are not changed); Special Red, Blue,
and Green Noise filters; a Grime Layer filter which adds grey noise to an
image; an intriguing 3-D Stereo Noise filter which creates what are known as
Single Image Random Dot Stereograms which can be seen in full 3-D with the
unaided eyes (you need two in the same head though) without any special
glasses; a number of regular and compound Stylizing filters: Scatter
Horizontal; Diffuse More; Sharpen Intensify; Find Edges Soft; Find Edges
Charcoal; Find Edges Invert; and an interesting color cycling filter for video
use called the Cyclone Filter. There’s plenty here to meet anyone’s needs.

   But wait... The list is not even nearly over! There is an collection of seve
filters named “Designers” and “Explorers” which allow a user to operate a
workshop “instrument panel” to permit intensive probing into corners of
mathematical plausibilities never before possible in a digital imaging program.
The Mandelbrot Set Explorer and Julia Set Explorers can be used to create
elaborate, seemingly unbounded Fractal images; The Gradient Designer and
Gradients Path Designer allow the creation of incomparable specialized blends
unlike any I’ve encountered for an application like Photoshop; and a Texture
Explorer can generate remarkable texture maps effortlessly. Each of these seven
“hubbed” filters will afford the user the means to create effects never before
imagined for use in Photoshop images, and as an extra bonus, there are hundreds
and hundreds of saved settings already included and spread throughout these
special filters. Kai’s unusual talent with descriptions really shows here, most
of his names for the pre-wired Gradients he’s created are a bit whimsical, but
as soon as the results appear, the humor and visual jest becomes obvious.
Avocadoid Universe, Utterly Shattered Shutters, and Think Zinc can only hint at
the full impact of the included settings and their final appearance in an
image.

   The algorithms used to create the sweeping gradients are unbelievably smooth
yet totally sharp at the centers, and due to elegant programming work faster in
most cases than others in related applications. Keep in mind though, that there
is serious mathematical processing going on for many of these effects, and even
moderate resolution images will be better served on faster processors or
accelerators. As most Photoshoppers know, when talking about speed, “Too much
is never enough...” Although most of the filters are intended strictly for
color (24-bit color depth is essentially de rigueur) some of the basic ones do
work in gray scale.

   The best way to proceed at this point would be to just sit down with you at
Mac, run through a couple of dozen of images which were created using the KPTs,
let you try a few of the filters on your own, and then tell you where to send
your check to buy them. Since I can’t exactly do that via the written word,
I’ve included a few images here, all of which relied on “Kai’s Power Tools”
filters for their inspiration and execution. I cannot recommend more strongly
this fascinating addition to Adobe Photoshop, and at the actual price of $3 per
filter, there needs to be no more compelling a reason to suggest that you get
these filters than to simply say, “You just gotta have ’em. Period.”

   Kai’s Power Tools are available for $149 from HSC Software, 1661 Lincoln
Boulevard #101, Santa Monica, CA 90404. Telephone: [phone], Fax:
310-392-6015. A special introductory price of $99 will be in effect until
January 21st, 1993.

About the Author: Marc Silverman is a Manhattan-based Digital Artist who uses
the Macintosh computer and related technologies to originate and execute client
projects, artistic work for exhibition, and outside freelance
commissions-for-hire. Marc maintains the creative enterprise, “Digital Photo
Works” to develop concepts and create imagery for Ad Agencies, Corporations,
Individual Clients, and for Public Exhibition. His work includes: Digital Photo
Imaging – Creating and manipulating digitally produced or digitally translated
images for special effects in print ads and for other specialized marketing
purposes; Typography and Layout – Preparing print ads, Imaged Slide
Presentations, Catalogs, and Roughs; Graphic Art – Creating Maps, Charts,
Tables, Flow charts, and the like; and Restoration and Reprinting of aged
family and corporate photographs using the digital photographic technologies
now available. Marc can also be contacted for Individual or Group training in
Adobe Photoshop or Quark XPress. Telephone: [phone].

-------------------------

Author’s Note: Entire Article and Original Images © 1992 / Marc S. Silverman.
Permission is granted to publish this article in your user group newsletter, or
post on your user group electronic BBS. Please send a copy of any newsletter in
which this is published to:

Marc Silverman
62 West 70th Street #2A
New York, NY 10023

If possible, please include: Originally published in the Mac Street Journal,
the newsletter of the New York MacUsers’ Group, Inc.

There are 11 Full Color Photoshop Images (described below) and one Black &
White Author’s Headshot available to you for use with this article. Please
contact me and leave complete mailing information and I will arrange to send
the two image diskettes to you by mail.

Marc Silverman
Telephone: [phone]
America Online: SilverMarc
Applelink: UG0099
Internet: [e-mail]

Picture Captions

Kai’s Power Tools Cover: The front cover image of Kai’s Power Tools is an image
by Kai Krause of Ian, his son. Kai has used every single one of the
thirty-three filters in his set to create this image from the original
photograph (also visible).

Gradient Designer Panel: If you get tired of exploring the 200 or so Gradients
that are already included with this filter, you could always create some of
your own. A gradient creates a color blend/fade, but not just a simple sweep
from one to another – the algorithms on which these are based can create
extremely complicated and elegant gradients. The green ring being prepared here
is one of the more basic examples included.

Julia Set II Explorer Panel: There are three different Julia Set Explorer
filters included, each offering a slightly different range of values for the
real and imaginary fractal planes, and other numerical entries. In all of the
Filter Panels, the checkerboards represent the area of the original image or
selection which will be unaffected or only partially affected by the particular
filter in use.

Path Gradient Panel: Allows you to create a smooth gradient along a selection
path. The possibilities for color choices, widths, and even gradient shapes are
virtually limitless. An example of this effect can be seen in the green fibrous
tubes on the right side of the Power Tools cover image.

Texture Explorer Panel: One of the most useful filters ever created for Adobe
Photoshop, the Texture Explorer allows the creation and manipulation of texture
maps for use in images. Choosing a point on the tree-like scale at the left
allows for a variance in the level of textural intensity, and choosing the
floating rainbow sphere allows for a variation of range of colors. All of the
Explorer Filters allow the user to save individual settings permanently. The
filter panels also contain an “Expert” mode (the Einstein button) for more
intensive uses. The Expert modes are available via a special code from HSC
Software, allowing for a greater range of explorative possibilities.

“Earth in Peril” CD Cover: This mock cover for a CD was created for a Don
Henley benefit concert. Kai used the Polished Glass Lens filters along with the
Mandelbrot Explorer to produce this image. Image by Kai Krause.

Persephone in the Underworld: This image was created by Marc Silverman using
some of the KPT Blur filters for the foreground figure, and the Gradient
Designer to produce the background fractal effects. The “barbed wire” borders
were created with the Smudge Lighten filter. Image by Marc Silverman.

Gaia Dreaming: The Stars in the galaxy background were produced using the Julia
Explorer III, the spherical midground was the Polished Glass Lens filter with
the stylistic colors created from the Blackbody Color Tables in Photoshop, and
the eerie effects on the floating figure were produced with the Blur Filters.
Image by Marc Silverman.

Blue Fractal Swirls: One of the more striking settings I came across during my
experimentations with the Mandelbrot Explorer. Image by Marc Silverman.

Julia Fractals: One of the Fractal images produced using the Julia Explorer I
filter. Image by Marc Silverman.

Glass Lens Filter: An example of the possibilities which can be generated using
the Polished Glass Lens filter. This sample image as you see it here was
created in three minutes. Image by Marc Silverman.