Virtual Painter – Jasc Software

www.jasc.com

Maureen Shannon, NJPCUG

Virtual Painter is a set of plug-in effects for image editors that will turn you images into realistic looking paintings. A plug-in is a set of filters/effects or a single effect that is plugged into a host application. It is installed into (plugged into) the host application’s filters or effects directory. Virtual Painter is an Adobe Photoshop (5.5 or higher) compatible plug-in. As a long time user of Jasc products, I was anxious to see how these filters worked and what kind of results I would get from them. There is a demo version included in Paint Shop Pro 7 but it’s just a sampling of what the full product has to offer.

Virtual Painter has 12 painting effects that are both customizable in setting adjustments and background textures. These filters create very impressive and interesting painting effects. The example below is a sampling of each painting style.

The image below is the original.

I love plug-ins. They add that something special to images that takes them from ordinary to extraordinary with a few clicks and adjustments! There are a multitude of filter effects available and each does something unique to your image. My plug-in directory is a whopping 2.26 gigs including one plug-in that is 1.42 gigs all by itself! You would probably wonder if I actually use all of these and the answer would be yes and I do have favorites that I use more often than others. An effect can be something simple, dramatic, beautifully artistic, or completely outrageous. They can range in price from free to several hundred dollars. 

I have not always had a great degree of success with painting effects. I have gotten results that have been less than I hoped for or some that are too much and look far from realistic or natural. I was pleasantly surprised with I tried working with Virtual Painter. I didn’t want some overdone, garish look but a realistic effect. The result of the effect also depends on how good the adjustment controls are and your ability to understand them and work with them. Virtual Painter’s adjustments allow you to see the various changes in a variety of settings and select from the best. You can make further adjustments to these selections as well.

To use Virtual Painter you have to open your image editor, I used Paint Shop Pro 7, have an image open and then select Virtual Painter and one of its effects from the drop down menu. This will launch its Dialog Box.

The example here shows Virtual Painter’s Dialog Box with the image that the effect will by applied to. You can view the original image, preview the effect that you have chosen, change the material, and make basic adjustments with the drop down menu selections in this view. You can also click on the “Adjustments” button to make further changes to the effect.

This is the Adjust Dialog Box. There are five images across the top that show what an image will look like with more intensity. The bottom images show what it will look like with less intensity. The boxes with a triangle are images that have reached their limit of adjustments. Right clicking on the image selections will let you make more adjustments to the selection. Clicking OK in either Dialog Box will apply the effect to the image.  

This is the Impasto effect. First I duplicated the image to another layer on the original and adjusted the color of the background so that it has a blue tone instead of being the natural greens that were in the lotus leaves. After doing that, I merged the two layers and applied the painting effect. The texture in this image is so real it looks like you could touch it.

This effect is the oil painting. I changed the background from the default setting to a fine canvas. When viewing the Dialog Box, clicking in the area around the image brings up the Material Dialog Box.

To select a focus point in an image, click and drag inside the image over the area that you want to be the focus. The hand cursor will change to a pinched hand and draw a line or lines. When you click to end the line the hand will open and the line will become and ellipse (or ellipses) that you open over the focus points to select them.

You can also use masks to apply effects to certain areas of an image instead of the whole thing.

  The example below is the Material Dialog Box. The materials available are:

*Washi is Japanese handmade paper

These two examples are of colored pencil effects.

The first image is a default colored pencil effect that came with the application. The second is the Color Pencil effect in Virtual Painter. You can easily see the difference between to two effects. The first is rough looking….it has more texture than pencil lines, it will vary according to the adjustments but it only has two sliders to make change.  The second has more pencil detail and color depth to it. It looks much more like a pencil drawing to me than the first one does. While either would add a different touch to an image, the second is more realistic.

These two images (below) are the Drawing effect and the Pastel effect.

You really should see all of the Virtual Painter effects to appreciate what this selection of filters can do with an image. The slide show may take a bit of time to download with a slower connection but the examples are well worth the wait.  I used a large sunflower image and the results are excellent.
Click here to view a slide show of examples.  

Click here to view a flash demo . Large file, please be patient while it loads.

I like this plug-in very much. It was easy to work with and did what it said it would. The paint effects do look real. I am very impressed with the results that I got from the various painting effects. Compared to results I have gotten with other filters, these were excellent. The assortment of 12 materials gives the paintings varied textures that further enhance the look of the image. Virtual Painter is available on Jasc’s web site in downloadable and boxed versions. The price for the download is $45 and $49 for the boxed version.

System requirements