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Cartoon Effect - a free macro


smadell

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I haven’t posted any “artistic filter” macros in a while, and I needed to break my dry spell. So, I tackled an effect that, until now, I’ve never accomplished in a way that I considered satisfactory. Today, I’m posting a Cartoon Effect macro that I’m happy with, and that I think will satisfy some users.

The macro is attached as an .afmacros file, which must be imported into the Library panel of Affinity Photo’s desktop version. It can also be imported into the iPad version (although I have not tested it on my iPad as of yet). Once the category resides in your Library, you can move the macro to a different category if you like – click and drag it to the destination you desire.

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When you invoke the macro, it will create a Group named “Cartoon Effect” and all of the edits reside within that group. Because of this, you can turn the group on and off to show and/or hide the effect entirely. If you look at the contents of the group, you’ll find a reasonably complicated multi-level collection of layers. The important ones are labelled, so you can edit the effect after the fact.

When you click on the macro, you will be faced with a dialog box that allows you to make 6 different choices. As you use these sliders, each change will run the macro again in order to invoke your change. The final effect is written to the image only when you click the “Apply” button. The choices you can make during the macro’s run are:

1) How Many Colors?

This is a Posterize adjustment, and the default value is 3. I’ve found this to be the best value for most images, but feel free to experiment.

2) Adjust Amount of Smoothing

This slider simplifies the edges of the colored areas formed by the Posterization. Higher values will simplify (smooth) the edges more. The default value is 4 px, but this can potentially be turned up quite high. At some point, though, increasing the edge smoothing will make the image unrecognizable. Change this slider as needed, but the practical upper limit is far lower than the slider will allow!

3) Outline Width (keep low, increase only as needed):

Outlines are placed at the edges of the posterized colors. They are black, or shades of grey. This slider allows the user to increase the width of the outlines, as needed. In general, keep the values fairly low (the default value is 1 px). Like the smoothing slider above, once you get above a certain value, the results will be atrocious.

4) Outline Darkness (higher = darker)

This slider defaults to 60% and affects the “blackness” of the outlines created. It corresponds to the Black slider in a Levels adjustment. Values over 90% will start to have an adverse effect on the overall colors of the image, and setting the darkness to 100% will turn the entire image black. Values of 90% or lower are generally OK.

5) Adjust Grey Outlines (higher = darker)

This slider defaults to 0.75, and corresponds to the Gamma slider in that same Levels adjustment. The effect of the slider is to make the grey outlines (those that are not entirely black) either more or less prominent.

6) Adjust Outline Opacity

This slider affects the overall opacity of the outlines. The default value is 100%, and setting this slider to 0% will effectively make the outlines disappear. However, once you have made adjustments to the sliders for outline width, darkness, and grey values, this slider can decrease the overall prominence of the outlines.

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I’ve attached two images below, showing the original photo, the Cartoon Effect settings used, and the cartoon result obtained. You should be aware that this macro may not look great on every single photo, mostly based on the overall complexity of the photo and the number of different colors in the original. Also, smaller photos (in my experience, images of less than about 800 x 800 pixels) don’t end up looking great.

300300892_CartoonEffectExample1.jpg.e13f10e18f8b4d316a94534a34b6237a.jpg

1958633300_CartoonEffectExample2.jpg.e04c305217269aac11816e22f1488bf2.jpg

As with all the macros I have submitted, please remember that I am one person with one computer, testing on a limited number of images. There is no way to have foreseen all possible scenarios. I believe (but obviously cannot guarantee) that you will be happy with the results.

If you like the macro, please keep it and enjoy it. It is yours to use freely. I have learned a great deal from the users on this forum, and their continuing generosity helps my ongoing efforts at learning. I encourage you to “pay it forward” and contribute to the forum in whatever ways you can.

Be one of the good guys.

Cartoon Effect.afmacros

Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2 (latest retail versions) - desktop & iPad
Culling - FastRawViewer; Raw Developer - Capture One Pro; Asset Management - Photo Supreme
Mac Studio with M2 Max (2023}; 64 GB RAM; macOS 13 (Ventura); Mac Studio Display - iPad Air 4th Gen; iPadOS 17

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I’m glad it worked well for you, @BobMoyer. It was, shall we say, a “labor of love.”

Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2 (latest retail versions) - desktop & iPad
Culling - FastRawViewer; Raw Developer - Capture One Pro; Asset Management - Photo Supreme
Mac Studio with M2 Max (2023}; 64 GB RAM; macOS 13 (Ventura); Mac Studio Display - iPad Air 4th Gen; iPadOS 17

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  Hi smadell  

 

I just tested your macros good job, cartoon effect but not only

 In the latest version of windows on the welcome image, we have a splash popup window, to give the password an interesting blurred version with color cast mapping.
 I was wondering how to generate this, attempt to use in color correction, just an instinctive reaction

Your macros are perfectly usable and adjustable for this:

   On a landscape image, in hard  light*  mode and in neutral position 50% I obtained results which seem interesting in the spirit of Hwb.

  *or other light modes

Yesss!

Thank you

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I'm glad you're enjoying it, @Max P. Use it well!

Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2 (latest retail versions) - desktop & iPad
Culling - FastRawViewer; Raw Developer - Capture One Pro; Asset Management - Photo Supreme
Mac Studio with M2 Max (2023}; 64 GB RAM; macOS 13 (Ventura); Mac Studio Display - iPad Air 4th Gen; iPadOS 17

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Thanks for your feedback, @mrs68tm. As with any "canned" effect, this macro will not be the perfect solution all the time. It may not be perfect any of the time! It's perfectly reasonable to expect that many folks will want to supplement the effect with additional adjustments, as you have. I don't think that the macro will be updated as you've suggested, but the addition of adjustments to increase its "pop" (such as the ones you mentioned) may certainly be warranted on a case-by-case basis.

Also, as I'm sure you're aware, you can edit your version of the macro to include these adjustments if they work for you.

Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2 (latest retail versions) - desktop & iPad
Culling - FastRawViewer; Raw Developer - Capture One Pro; Asset Management - Photo Supreme
Mac Studio with M2 Max (2023}; 64 GB RAM; macOS 13 (Ventura); Mac Studio Display - iPad Air 4th Gen; iPadOS 17

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