Droste effect query

[Kasper-V]

Is there a straightforward or easy way (or or a difficult and complicated way!) to achieve a Droste effect with AD or AP? The self-repeating image is easy enough, but the type that involves loops and spirals is a challenge. There's a website that lets you create them online,  http://www.photospiralysis.com/Epsilon/Epsilon.html, but there's a size limit. And it's always more satisfying to do it yourself, not to  mention having full control over the process.

 

This is the simple kind ...

 

 

and this is the other kind ,,,

 

I know of something called Pixel Bender, which can be used with Photoshop (and requires jumping through a few hoops), but I don't know if it's of any use with Affinity.

[Callum]

Hi Kasper-v,

 

The first example you have given should be quite easy to reproduce :) If you take a picture of yourself with an empty frame you should then be able to continuously lay the photo ontop of itself using the File > Place functions then use the perspective tools to make it fit within the frame. 

 

I have attached a sample of this below with my beautiful smiley face in it  :P Mine is a little sloppy you may notice I cut my fingers off and instead of a picture frame I'm using a whiteboard but you should get the idea!

 

I will look into possibly recreating the second effect in Affinity and get back to you.

 

 

Thanks

C

[Kasper-V]

Thanks Callum. Actually, I made the first one ages ago with Paintshop Pro (in my pre-Serif days). Yes, it's quite easy, and like you, I had a very compliant model! The second one I made with the Photospiralysis website, but I want to do it all myself -- if you don't want Total Control, you're not taking it seriously. Tomorrow the world ...

[Alfred]

instead of a picture frame I'm using a whiteboard

 

What you haven't done, of course, is to fill the smallest whiteboard with a copy of the picture.... 

[Callum]

What you haven't done, of course, is to fill the smallest whiteboard with a copy of the picture.... 

I didn't have enough time to make it perfect just to make it! 

[Kasper-V]

I worked out you don't actually have to repeat the copies ad infinitum. When you get down to one pixel, you can stop.

[Fixx]

This can lead you to some weird places:

 

”In Escape from the Planet of the Apes, the third part of the classic film series Planet of the Apes, Dr Otto Hasslein develops a certain theory of time which explains how it is possible for the apes to be brought back from the future into the past. Hasslein’s theory is that one can understand time only if one interprets it as a kind of “infinite regress.” He explains this to viewers of a news broadcast in which he appears – in the film these viewers are the apes of the future, and of course we are viewers of the film – with the help of an illuminating example. We see a landscape in a painting. We know that someone painted the landscape. So we can also imagine a painting in which a painting appears along with the painter who painted it. But this painting is also painted, and absolutely not by the same painter. For at best he paints the painting in the painting. Thus, we can once again imagine a painting in which we see the painter who paints a picture, in which a painter paints the original landscape, and so on, ad infinitum – an infinite regression.” (– Why the world does not exist / Markus Gabriel)

[A_B_C]

A painted painter doesn’t paint anything, not even “at best”, so in the end, there is only one painter … sorry for this unpoetic remark …  ;) :D  

[carl123]

The Power Duplicate function is quite good at these sort of effects.

 

 

[A_B_C]

And this one might be useful for drawing an “infinite” spiral …

 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/8485-how-to-draw-a-spiral/?p=35090

 

:)

[dutchshader]

Not perfect, but it can be done in photo.

 

 

[dutchshader]

this one is a little bit better.

 

 

 

[Kasper-V]

This is the best I've managed, but a bit quick-and-dirty. Starting with this image,

I opened it in Photo, increased the canvas size (because it gets cropped), duplicated the layer, applied Polar to Rectangular, then went to Open In Designer. I applied the perspective tool and pulled the bottom-right corner up and in, then back to Photo to apply Rectangular to Polar. 

 

There's a fair bit of swapping between the two to get started -- maybe it's not all necessary? Anyway, next step is to reduce the layer size and rotate it to line up with the lower layer. After that, it's just a matter of duplicating the layer, reducing and rotating it as many times as you want. This is just two layers, as I got fed up fiddling about:

Notice the border from the original canvas resize.

 

I expect there's a less labour-intensive and more accurate procedure, which I shall put my mind to finding. Unless someone beats me to it!

[dutchshader]

Hello Kasper,

 

in you example only the inside of the picture is repeated .

the difficult part is to repeat the whole picture and let golden circle go in a to spiral.

 

i wil try to make one out of your picture.

[dutchshader]

and this is where i came up with:

 

[Kasper-V]

That's the sort of thing I'm trying to do, dutchshader -- but without the black corners. I want to get the spiral with the gold circle as the edge, and without the distortion that my example produced.

[dutchshader]

Hello Kasper,

 

this would be the effect you wanted.

 

 

 

start this way and it is not so hard to do

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kasper-V]

start this way and it is not so hard to do

But not so elegant either!  :)

[dutchshader]

This was just a quick made example.

needs a little tweak, thought the result was'nt that bad.

[Kasper-V]

I've just found out there's a known error in the polar/rectangular filter, which accounts for some of the other funny results I've been getting: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/32451-polar-to-rectangular-implementation/?hl=polar
Well, I look forward to seeing it fixed! Meanwhile I can muddle through with my old copy of Paint Shop Pro when I need a P/R.