Andromeda Cutline and Screens filters

KH
Posted By
Keith_H.
Jul 12, 2004
Views
1668
Replies
6
Status
Closed
Hello,

I’m looking for a good solution for woodcut and etch effects. I came across the Andromeda Cutline and Screens filters via Google. They look promising. Anyone have experience with these? If so, which one delivers better woodcut effects?

Thanks.

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B
BobLevine
Jul 12, 2004
Andromeda makes some very nice filters. I’m not particularly crazy about the interfaces but they do work. Hard to say what you need without a better idea of what you hope to accomplish.

Bob
DM
dave_milbut
Jul 12, 2004
I’m looking for a good solution for woodcut and etch effects.

our very own mathias v. has a great tutorial on this very topic:

<http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/3dtext/default.htm>
BO
Burton_Ogden
Jul 12, 2004
Keith,

If so, which one delivers better woodcut effects?

In my opinion, Cutline delivers better woodcut effects. I have both Screens and Cutline. I used Screens primarily for printing images to our HP Laser Printer (which after many years of use and countless reams of printout, is now broken.) Screens was good at converting an image to something that looked good printed in black toner. Screens would also be good for converting images to a form suitable for faxing.

Cutline is the one designed primarily for achieving a woodcut effect, and by playing around with it, you can get some good results. The trick is to get the cut lines to follow the contours of the image in a good way. You may want to upsample your image to give it more pixels to work with. (That tip also applies to Screens.) You can use both Cutline and Screens in conjunction with each other and other Photoshop operations to get some interesting special effects. But for woodcut effects I would use Cutline.

— Burton —
KH
Keith_H.
Jul 12, 2004
Thanks for the feedback!

What I’m trying to accomplish is a woodcut/engraved print effect. The best example I can think of would be president portraits on US currency. I want to take a black and white image and convert its midtones and shadows to woodcut-style line engravings.

It seems like the Cutline filter is what I’m looking for, although it must have been released awhile ago judging from the comments on its interface.

Are there any other products that are similar, or is Cutline the best out there?
BO
Burton_Ogden
Jul 13, 2004
Keith,

I don’t think the president portraits on US currency are woodcuts. My guess would be they are steel engravings. I don’t know that Cutline is the best for president’s engravings. You can get something very much like that with Series 3 Screens <http://www.andromeda.com/info/series3.html>.

A lot of people like the style of the portraits in the Wall Street Journal. Actually, I think those were done by hand by an artist who was good at it, rather than by a Photoshop plug-in. But with practice using the directional tools in Cutline <http://www.andromeda.com/info/cutline.html> I think you could come close to the Wall Street Journal style with Cutline. You don’t have that directional control in Screens, as Andromeda shows is a comparison of Cutline and Screens <http://www.andromeda.com/info/cutscreen.html>. The example shown on the Series 3 Screens <http://www.andromeda.com/info/series3.html> page was done by successively applying the filter to various selections, with different settings for each selection.

You might also want to take a look at the EtchTone Filter <http://www.andromeda.com/info/etch.html>, which is similar but different from Screens and Cutline. Andromeda is bundling all three: Series 3 Screens, Cutline, and Etch Tone for $225, a "savings" of $56. In my opinion Andromeda stuff is a bit over-priced and Cutline should be at version 2 or 3 by now. But you can get good results with their filters.

Andromeda offers free demo downloads of all of their products. You might want to take them up on it. As I recall, the demos prevent you from actually applying the effect to your Photoshop image, but let you preview what you would get if you owned the filter. By playing with the demos you could get a better idea what results you might get with Screens versus Cutline versus EtchTone.

I think there might be a competitive product out there, but right offhand, I can’t recall its name or vendor. Perhaps another participant will supply that information.

— Burton — (not associated with Andromeda)
RB
Robert_Barnett
Jul 13, 2004
Actually, all of Andromeda’s plug-ins have horrible interfaces it doesn’t matter when they were made. Shame too!

Robert

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