*A Bit of Fluff You Can Skip*

Deke, here. The Deke who wrote the book, that is. Just a brief note to implore you
to excuse any typos you may find in this document. I wrote it in a bit of a hurry
--
big surprise there -- and though I spell checked it, nary an editor has passed so
much as a jaundiced eye o'er its contents. This is me in the literary raw, as
'twere.

*The Real Intro*

You'll find eight filters in this folder. I created them all in Photoshop's
Filter Factory over the course of a single long and tumultuous evening -- one of
those wonderfully productive all nighters -- and I believe they serve genuine
purposes, even the ones with silly names like Color Creep and Ripping Pixels.
Four of the filters merely provide more convenient access to some of Photoshop's
existing capabilities; the other four are unique and -- dare I say it? -- actually
add functionality to this already vast and amazing program. (At least, this is what

I've managed to con myself into believing. Now if I could only think of a good
way to con you . . . )

*Installing the Filters*

Installation is the simplest of procedures. Select the eight filters and drag-copy
them to the Filters folder inside the Plug-Ins folder inside the folder that
contains
the Photoshop application.

In addition to the filters themselves, I advise prospective filter programmers to

copy the settings files so that you can load the code used to create the filters
into
the Filter Factory dialog box. For many, the code will serve as an important
learning tool. The occasional power-programmer might even be able to improve on
my code to make it better.

Oh, and by the way, if Photoshop is running, quit the darn thing and relaunch it.
The filters only load once at the beginning of each Photoshop session.

*Using the Filters*

Now that you've installed the filters and launched Photoshop, I urge you to open
an RGB image. Something that you're willing to muck up. Not a picture of your
new-born daughter or your car or anything you prize. Something disposable, like a
scan of Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh. Whatever.

Under the Filter menu, you will now find a new submenu called Tormentia. Inside
that, you'll find eight filters, as promised. Here's how they work, in order of
appearance (which happens to be alphabetical):

* Channel Mixer:
This filter allows you to mix the contents of the three channels with each other to

produce alternative coloring effects. This is the one that Adobe's programmers
stole from me, as I mentioned in Chapter 5. Sadly, that's the way it is for us
visionaries. We're just grist for the big corporate mill. Makes you want to cry,
doesn't it?
When you bring up the Channel Mixer dialog box, you'll find six slider bars. The
top two affect the red channel, the next two affect the green channel, and the
bottom two affect the blue channel. To achieve an effect with the filter, you first

have to drag one of the three Over slider triangles to the right. This increases
the
presence of another channel in the current channel. The three sliders whose names
include slashes -- like Blue/Green -- determine which channel is being mixed with
the current channel.
For example, if the Blue/Green slider is set to 0, and you move the Over Red slider

triangle to 128 -- smack dab in the middle -- it means the blue channel is halfway
mixed in with the contents of the red channel. Drag the Blue/Green slider all the
way to the right to mix the green channel with the red channel instead. Somewhere
in the middle mixes both blue and green channels with red. Use the Over Red
slider to control the opacity of the foreign channel(s) from transparent, 0, to
fully
opaque, 255.

* Color Creep:
Color Creep multiplies the green channel into the red channel, the blue channel
into the green channel, and the red channel into the blue channel. You lighten the
impact of each multiplication by dragging one of the first three slider bars.
Wrench
Red lightens the effect on the red channel, Gnarl Green does the same for the green

channel, and Bother Blue goes ditto for the blue channel. The fourth slider bar,
Mix to Taste, allows you to specify the opacity of the Color Creep effect from 0
for untouched original image to 255 for fully opaque. Any number of interesting
effects can be created using this filter.

* CrissCross:
Another seemingly boring filter that is incredibly practical, CrissCross adds grid
lines to your image. Use the Horizontal and Vertical sliders to determine the
frequency of the grid lines. Keep in mind, the numbers on the sliders do *not*
equate to the number of grid lines. Rather, you drag the slider triangle to the
right
in order to introduce grid lines like folds in a collapsing curtain.
(Mathematically,
the analogy is surprisingly accurate.) Horizontal and Vertical values of 0 apiece
result in one horizontal line and one vertical line dividing the image into exact
quarters (or as exact as possible -- e.g., one quadrant may a pixel wider than
another). Values of 129 apiece divide the image into 1/16ths. A value of 255
creates one grid line every other pixel.
The Opacity slider bar determines the opacity of the grid lines. Use the Red,
Green,
and Blue sliders to specify the color of the lines. Red, Green, and Blue values of
255 apiece, for example, result in white lines. (I would have preferred to simply
apply the current foreground color to the grid lines, but the Filter Factory
provides
no foreground or background color variable.)
Tip: Apply this filter to a transparent layer. This way, you can turn the grid on
and
off without affecting the underlying image itself.

* Full Channel Press:

Though it produces a very different effect, the code for this filter is nearly
exactly
like the Color Creep. The only different is that instead of multiplying one channel

by another, Full Channel Press multiples the color by itself. As with Color Creep,
you drag the triangles in the first three sliders -- cleverly named Bench Red, Jerk

Green, and Pump Blue -- to the right to lighten the effect on each channel. The Gym
Mix slider determines the opacity of the new channels over the originals.

* Noise Blaster:
Like the CrissCross filter, Noise Blaster is unlike anything offered by Photoshop.
Rather than adding a random coating of noise like the Add Noise filter, Noise
Blaster randomly distributes colors that already exist in specified directions. The

result is a directional noise effect that has much the same relationship to Add
Noise as Motion Blur has to the standard Blur command.
The most important options inside the Noise Blaster dialog box are the last two
sliders, Horiz. (L/R) and Vert. (D/U). (The L/R stands for left/right; D/U stands
for
down/up.) A value of 128 for either slider indicates no movement. Drag the Horiz.
(L/R) triangle to the right to specify the distance that pixels can jump rightward
from their original positions; drag it to the left to make the pixels jumps
leftward.
Drag the Vert. (D/U) slider to the left to move the pixels down; move it to the
right to move them upward.
Small values create randomized edges, much like a directional Diffuse filter;
larger
values create trails; and very large values blow the image apart. Meanwhile, you
can control the opacity of the effect on each channel using the Red Tint, Green
Tint, and Blue Tint options.

* Ripping Pixels:
Another previously unavailable noise filter, Ripping Pixels generates a random
brightness value between like pixels in two color channels and places that value
in the third channel. The slider bars allow you to vary the opacity of the effects.

For example, if you set the Red Noise slider to 255, the Ripping Pixels filter
would calculate a random average between each like pixel in the green and blue
channels and place it in the red channel at full opacity. The wonderful thing about

this filter is that even with all three sliders set to their highest settings,
Ripping
Pixels does not ruin the detail in the image, but rather integrates the detail into
the
noise.

*Rotator:
This filter rotates the red, green, and blue channels independently. You can also
create a protrusion in the center of the image using the Distorto slider. I examine

this filter in detail inside the book, so if you want more information, check out
Chapter 17.

* SuperInvert:
You can already invert channels by switching the Output Levels slider triangles in
the Levels dialog box for each of the three color channels, but since lots of folks

don't know about this option or are a little bit overwhelmed by all the other stuff

that the Levels command can do, I figured I'd spin this extremely useful function
off into its own, stripped down environment -- a.k.a., the SuperInvert filter.
The SuperInvert dialog box provides three slider bars, Red, Green, and Blue. Each
one remaps each brightness value in the channel to its exact opposite over the
length of the slider. Light pixels incrementally darken and dark ones lighten as
you
drag the slider bar to the right. By 129, all pixels in the channel have turned to
gray. As you drag to higher values, the pixels reemerge to form a partially
inverted
image. By 255, the channel is fully inverted.

*Epilogue*
Oh, yeah. right. A ReadMe file like this deserves an epilogue. I don't think so.
Just
go use the filters and have fun. And if you don't like them, open up the settings
files and turn them into something better.

*Copyright*
Incidentally, the filters are copyrighted to me, as in Copyright �1998 Deke
McClelland. I'd prefer if you didn't copy the filters or any of the settings files
for
your friends, loved ones, arch enemies, or complete strangers. I consider the
collection to be an integral part of the book, one the many things that your $49.95

buys.