Artsy Fartsy Help

[SilkyJohnston]

Hey all!  

I wanted to say thanks for the help I got last week on installing an add-on.  Great stuff...

But on to the current problem!  I am making a map and have a bunch of brushes consisting of different cartography symbols.  I am part way through the project and am having problems matching the cartography brush symbols to the project.

I know a lot of this will be by hand and am open to any advice about layer settings and crazy blur effects as well.

Current layers
parchment under normal mode
coast line under burn
and the symbol itself is on a normal layer.

[rich2005]

Looking at the clip from your map just a couple of comments.

Are you using coastline layer in 'burn' mode to make what is a faint PS brush darker? It does leave it a bit pixellated. Instead of burn, you could try one of the edge detect filters on the complete layer (in normal mode) Obviously, keep a backup just-in-case. screenshot https://i.imgur.com/vCvXkIE.jpg Might be an improvement.

I can see a join in the background. No good trying to blur your way out. Make a new parchment pattern that is tile-able.
The plugin for this is resynthesizer. You can get a Windows version here. https://www.gimp-forum.net/Thread-Resynt...or-Windows Windows version is old but still works.

Make a new pattern from the old. Export as a png to your patterns folder. Comparison. https://i.imgur.com/v535uzQ.jpg

[SilkyJohnston]

(09-25-2019, 09:36 AM)rich2005 Wrote: Looking at the clip from your map just a couple of comments.

Are you using coastline layer in 'burn' mode to make what is a faint PS brush darker?  It does leave it a bit pixellated. Instead of burn, you could try one of the edge detect filters on the complete layer (in normal mode) Obviously, keep a backup just-in-case.   screenshot https://i.imgur.com/vCvXkIE.jpg Might be an improvement.

I can see a join in the background. No good trying to blur your way out. Make a new parchment pattern that is tile-able.
The plugin for this is resynthesizer. You can get a Windows version here.  https://www.gimp-forum.net/Thread-Resynt...or-Windows  Windows version is old but still works.

Make a new pattern from the old. Export as a png to your patterns folder.  Comparison. https://i.imgur.com/v535uzQ.jpg

Thank you Rich...

Yeah I thought I had to use burn.  The other modes were too faint and I kind of liked the ink look.  I will mess with the edge detectors and parchment today.  I have been learning a lot about this stuff.

[SilkyJohnston]

Ok!  I have rebuilt the parchment and I think it looks better.  I ended up just using some stains.  And the edge detection filters are the bomb!  Much better thanks.

I am trying to get a hand drawn in ink look with these symbols and I am still frustrated.  I keep thinking there has to be a fix that doesn't involve hand work.  On the attached photo (anchor) all I did was get rid of some of the 'blur' by hand.  I went ahead and dropped an unmodified symbol for reference.

any or all comments are welcome.

[rich2005]

A bit of pixel counting on your example image and those brushes are quite small.

A possibility and very much depends on the brushes. 
When complete and on a transparent layer try  Layer -> Transparency -> Threshold Alpha 0.5 is the default parameter.