Needing some help with a pattern

[Lilly]

Oh Ken,
Thank you so much for helping me. I also thought this would make a great address sign if I could get the design to look decent . Makes me realize how far I have to go to get close to the work all of you guys do.. Just soooo awesome.

Big thanks to all of you for your help

Lilly♥

[bjbethke]

I decided to take this picture as an opportunity to practice to learn some of the techniques that make pictures looks good in carvings. I tried to duplicate the effects as I guessed that you might have done it. I copied the eagle into paint.net and used the technique described in the tutorial created by AskBud where you create additional layers and use the Gaussian blur then combine them back for the rounded effect. I know you said you used photoshop, but I am guessing you did something similar. I inverted the colors then did the blur and found that it was working, but not well enough. Then I cut out the nameplate and did a separate layer for it and then the head and did a separate layer for it. I was able to achieve something similar to what you had for those parts, (although the eyes and beak need more work) but for the wings I tried doing the same thing, but no matter what I did I couldn't get anything even close to what you got. I assume it has to do with the size of the items? Is there a specific trick to getting things of the shape and size of the wings to appear rounded?

It still looked like something else was missing until I saw that you also outlined and raised the whole thing. Did you do that in Photoshop or once it was in designer? What is the best tool to select and outline an irregular many part object line like this one? When I tried to outline in designer or in Paint.net it tried to outline all the individual feathers and such rather than the whole thing.

I love the suggestion of looking in coloring books for source material. Those ideas that you don't think of until someone says it and then you think "of course it seems so obvious" are the ones that are real genius.

dltccf, I also used another program to give the image some height (Displacement Map) it brings the White color to the top of the board and Black carve into the board, and give it a rounded 3d effect. It is called Shader Map Pro.

I made a short PDF to show how I use the program with Photoshop.

[dltccf]

dltccf, I also used another program to give the image some height (Displacement Map) it brings the White color to the top of the board and Black carve into the board, and give it a rounded 3d effect. It is called Shader Map Pro.

I made a short PDF to show how I use the program with Photoshop.

I downloaded the DEMO version of shadermap pro and it looks like it is a pretty useful tool. I might like to get some more details on how you use it. I drag an picture (used a line drawing) into the source image box. I asks which source type it is and offers 3 choices. Diffuse seems to the best? Then I can see the displacement maps on the left. I can click and have it preview the various types. Looks like displacement is the one I am going to want. the demo program won't let me do a "save as" which I assume is what i need to do next. Am I on the right track?

For only $20 bucks, it looks like it might be a very good tool for carvers.

[bjbethke]

I downloaded the DEMO version of shadermap pro and it looks like it is a pretty useful tool. I might like to get some more details on how you use it. I drag an picture (used a line drawing) into the source image box. I asks which source type it is and offers 3 choices. Diffuse seems to the best? Then I can see the displacement maps on the left. I can click and have it preview the various types. Looks like displacement is the one I am going to want. the demo program won't let me do a "save as" which I assume is what i need to do next. Am I on the right track?

For only $20 bucks, it looks like it might be a very good tool for carvers.

PM me your e-mail address. It would be easier to work with you with an e-mail.