Just by itself, I find Fractilus a little overpowering. However my work flow tones it down by bringing in the filter to a varying degree depending on the original.
I copy the original into two layers.
Apply my favourite settings of fractilus to the top layer then give the top layer some transparancy, bringing back some tonal detail and merging the two layers....
Very nice use indeed! I've seen some other uses of this filter that, while interesting, have been rather overwhelming. Your transparency mutes the filter enough to make it more realistic. I particularly like the statue in #4, it really doesn't look like the filter was used, but that the texture was really there!
I was intrigued with Fractilus but every time I experimented with it, my results were over powering & I could not get the effect I wanted. When I tried the 2 layer with transparency method, it all seemed to come together for me.
Thanks also to all who have encouraged me to go one with it.
These are sweet. Donald, I have been experimenting with Fractalius and was just curious...does it take quite a while for you to process the image once you've got it where you want it in Fractalius? When I click the green check mark "OK" button, it literally takes 5 mins before it opens again in CS4.
I'm using the demo version tho, don't know if that has anything to do with it.
Hi Wordski
I have fractalius.8bf in the 'Plug-ins' directory of Photoshop.
I open the source image in PS and apply the Fractalius by using PS Filter dropdown.
I find that applying the filter only takes a few seconds. (I do have a quad core processor with 4GB ram... That bight help with the speed, but 5 minutes does seem a long time - Are you doing very large files?
My files were about 25mb and i'm using a dual core processor with 3gb of RAM. When I change from preset to preset in the Frac dialog box it moves pretty darn quick. but when i apply the filter to the image it seems to take forever! I usually get up and go do something before I come back to edit the image any further.
I can open a 100mb file in just a few seconds. It may be due to the fact that i'm using the demo version. I'm going to get the full version and see if that does any better.
