FILTERS

"What in the Holy Hand Grenades is a filter", you say? (Only if you're a Monty Python fan <G> ). A filter (or 'plug-in') is basically a little program that works inside Paint Shop Pro (or Photoshop) that performs various mathematical calculations that affect each pixel's color, lightness, hue, etc. Filters can do amazing things and create amazing effects in one fail swoop. Most filters are made by companies other than the graphics software maker, although nowadays, Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro ship with a lot of filters and effects included. Filter packages like Eye Candy, Xenofex, and BladePro allow you to make an amazing array of effects and looks without having to do the work yourself.

All third party filters that will work in Photoshop will work in Eye Candy. Photoshop ships with a bunch of filters, most of which will work in Paint Shop Pro, but not all.

The possibilities of what can be done using filters are literally endless. Here's a list of the more common things I use filters for:

  1. Half-tone dots - They're the dots like on the '99 Rusty Wallace Alternative car. This trick uses a filter that ships with Photoshop that works in PSP. There's a Half-tone tutorial coming in a few months... be patient. ;)
  2. Chrome effects - (I have a lot of variations on chrome, most are done with Eye Candy's Chrome and Glass filters)
  3. Dithered fades - Like thewhite>blue fade on the #66 2000 Alt. Car. With the limited number of colors in the N3 palette, pixellating or 'dithering' is a great way to get a fade or gradient that would'nt work otherwise.
  4. Bevels - Whenever something (usually a number or text) looks '3D', like it's bulging or popping out of the sheetmetal& that's a Bevel. I use Eye Candy for that.
  5. Blurs - I blur a lot of things, actually. Particularly if they have a hard, non-antialiased edge to them. Blurring can smooth that out a little, but it sacrifices image sharpness (in the interior).
  6. Twirls, swirls, and girls - Whoops! Not girls. Hehe. Another Photoshop-standard filter is Twirl, I used that on a square to get the black twirl behind the 'Lite' on the hood of Rusty's 2000 alternative Car.
  7. Lightning - I use a Xenofex (made by the same people as Eye Candy) filter for this. I also have a dingbat font of various realistic-looking lightning bolts that comes in handy for this.
I could go on forever, but those are the main uses I have for filters. Most filters are smart enough to run on selection areas (so they only affect what's selected, and not everything in the layer or image) and they can really work wonders. I couldn't do a lot of the things you see on my cars if it wasn't for Eye Candy and the standard filters from Photoshop 5.

Here's the only hitch with filters, they can be REALLY expensive. The two sets of filters made by Alien Skin, Eye Candy and Xenofex, run about 100 bucks for each. Each one contains 15-20 very powerful  filters (and almost all are useful), but that's still a lot to pay for some filters. I was lucky and clever and managed to procure some of the more expensive filter packages for little or nothing. Mostly through friends/family who weren't getting any use out of them and passed them on to me in exchange for some graphic or web work/help. Are Eye Candy and Xenofex worth the money? To me they are. If you're just painting the occasional car and that's it, save your money and find other cool effects to put on your car that can be done with free filters. If you're interested in web work, have the extra dough layin' around, or are a car-paintin' fool who can't do without the cool effects, then they are DEFINITELY worth it.

There are a LOT of free filters out there as well. There's a set called 'unplugged' filters that includes over 90 filters that do some amazing and very useful things. All in all, your best bet is to surf the plug-in websites (of which there are hundreds) and snag all you can. Here's some links to get you started in your filter hunt.

  • The Plugin Head - This is filter and plug-in central. Links to all the currently available filters, as well as help with using them. DEFINITELY start here!
  • VanDerLee - Home of the freeware Unplugged and Adrenaline filter sets. Definitely pick these up.
  • Photoshop.org - Photoshop.org has several effects tutorials that I checked out, which taught me how to do a lot of the cool effects you see on my cars (the half-tone dots is one of them).
  • Paint Shop Pro.com - This is the homepage of PSP, they have a message board where you can ask questions and get help. Very good resource.
Happy hunting!

    GETTING YOUR FILTERS/PLUG-INS INTO PSP

Once you've got your filters, you need to download and install the filters to a 'Plug-ins' folder in the Paint Shop Pro folder (which should be under C:/Program Files). If there isn't a folder called that, create one and install/place them there.

Now go into Paint Shop Pro, and select 'Preferences-General Program Preferences' from the 'File' menu. A new window will appear like the one below:



Click on the 'Plug-in Filters' tab and browse to the directory where you saved/placed your filters. Now click OK. Paint Shop Pro will now automatically load your plug-ins and filters from that folder each time it starts up. To use a filter, select 'Plug-in Filters' from the 'Image' menu, and all your filters will be listed there. I won't go into how to use the filters themselves (they're like mini-programs). Most are pretty straight forward and intuitive. You shouldn't have any trouble using them after just a few minutes of tinkering around.

That's about it. I'd like to reiterate just HOW powerful these filters are, and the fact that the things you can do with them are virtually limitless. You can use combinations of filters (run one, then another, then another, all on the same object) and get effects and things that you never dreamed of. So play around with them. ;)


Okay, now you know how to do all the major techniques and how to use the various tools available to you to create the 4 elements we talked about. Now let's move on to the 3rd overal section of the tutorial where we'll work on applying what we've learned so far directly in to painting cars.

IE Users please Click Here to continue

Netscape Users please Click Here to continue

E-MAIL RPS