Thread: Folding without really folding

Its really a convincing start but if you want to make it really look folded you're going to have to put creases in the paper as well as shade it. I recall a couple of Photoshop tutorials I'm sure you could adapt to the gimp.

Sigurd.

I'll try and see if I bookmarked them.


Sigurd

If you are talking about deforming it, you'll note that I stated this was an effect and that the original is exactly as it was. I want to maintain that idea. I don't want to do any destructive changes to the map but give the illusion that it has been folded. What about it is failing to give that illusion?

That is what I'm looking to achieve so please let me know. Is it because the image is so large the "creases" don't work? Take a look at it in its non enlarged appearance and see if it works better. If so, I'll have to remember to keep image sizes down quite a bit to allow the illusion to work.

I'm half and half on this...I see the "illusion" of it...maybe if you had some overlay sharper residual creases near the "+" folds?

If you are trying to do it as a nondestructive layer I think you've done a great job. The only small nit pick is that you might have a floating creaseline at the bottom of the folds and maybe play with some highlights as well as shadows. That would be really really finicky though and might not be worth the effort.

My comment above was really based on this tutorial for Photoshop.

http://www.planetphotoshop.com/folds-and-creases.html

Its very thorough and very good but it does deform the image.


Sigurd

Yea I had considered that, but my thinking was that this wouldn't be a sharply creased map. It would be one folded quickly to keep from prying eyes and shoved into a bag or something. I tried doing sharper creases but they sort of force you distort the image to get the look right, and I'm trying not to do that. The idea here is that if I can get this to work I can create an action that would work on any map and potentially allow you to specify the number of folds you want. Just sort of toying with an idea or two.

To give you an idea, the above only took me about 15 minutes or so at lunch today, and a lot of that was fiddling around.

Originally Posted by Sigurd

If you are trying to do it as a nondestructive layer I think you've done a great job. The only small nit pick is that you might have a floating creaseline at the bottom of the folds and maybe play with some highlights as well as shadows. That would be really really finicky though and might not be worth the effort.

My comment above was really based on this tutorial for Photoshop.

http://www.planetphotoshop.com/folds-and-creases.html

Its very thorough and very good but it does deform the image.


Sigurd

That is a great tutorial. I'll have to incorporate some of those ideas. I was with him until the end when he started touching the actual map layer. I'm trying to do this without manipulating the actual map itself which is where the challenge is.

That's a great trick! Of course I'm not even slightly biased by the choice of map

It took me a while to figure out the direction of the creases. I thought for a long time that the central crease was a valley crease - so that when the map was folded the image would be inside. However I now realise it's the other way round - which makes sense of some of the other shadows that were confusing me. While I was figuring it out I noticed that the drop shadows on the right hand side are out - they should be under the peaked folds. I'm also with the others - a light dodge along the creases would help a little. Here's a quick shot:

Torstan-

The dodge really helps to make the peaks pop!

Nice addition.

-Rob A>

Agreed! That definitely helped. Although, your initial assumption was actually correct. I wanted the image to be folded inside. I'll have to keep that in mind when I try this again.