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What I meant by the photo filters is that, if you have Photoshop (if Will can get it, you can too!), you are far better off using those instead. The filters in FF are too slow and cumbersome by comparison. In Photoshop, You can apply photo filters as adjustment layers, and they do not actually change the underlying image. This allows you go to back at any time and tweak. That's not how Filter Forge works. When you apply a filter to an image, it "destructively" modifies the image. You cannot go back later and make a fine-tuning adjustment. You have to start all over. If you've used three or four filters on an image, you do it in steps, with each step modifying the previous version.
As someone else noted, you can set Filter Forge to do its thing (in stand alone mode), so the several minute wait for it to draw out a high resolution (3K-4K) texture doesn't have to tie up your machine.
Other thing to consider: FF doesn't have a color picker that works outside the program, so you'll have to develop your own system for matching colors, or finding color wheel companions. It's a real hassle to render out a full texture, only to find the colors don't match those you're using with the rest of your art! The more workflow policies you create for yourself, the faster your work will go.
If you haven't done so already, you can download a trial. that's the best way of determining if it's right for you. Like any "painterly" filters for Photoshop, the results of paint and sketch filters depends entirely on the source image. Sometimes it looks good; sometimes it looks dreadful. This is why you need to try it with your own art.
I use Color Cop in conjunction with FF as a colour picker, because I use it nearly every day in conjunction with other stuff too. It's one of the few program icons that's pinned on my taskbar all the time and is a tiny little thing that takes up little screen space, can open in seconds in 'always on top' mode and can be despatched just as quickly again when I'm done. Because I've got it permanently on the taskbar and so don't have to go looking for it when I want it, I don't find it any slower to use than a colour picker that could/should have been an option of whatever program I'm using and capable of working outside of it. It's free too, which is a bonus.
I've thought about downloading the trial, but my attention is already divided up between my actual job and photography that I'd barely have time to poke into FF. :( :( :(
I'll add my 2 cents to "Hip Hip Hooray for Filter Forge!!". I've been using it for years and at one point they had a lifetime upgrade special - $300 and never have to pay anything ever again. It's AWESOME! I have Photoshop (via Cloud subscription) open almost every time I am at the computer and use Filter Forge almost daily. The effects are AMAZING and fun too! The more you use it, the more uses you will think of for it. EJNOY! PLAY! HAVE FUN!
For the curious, I just uploaded a dozen or so experiments with actual filters up on my deviantart.
A little late to the party.. but yes, awesome program and totally worth it if you want to do any sort of retexturing.
This made me laugh
"So how would you do that in MS Paint?"
Actually, after playing with Photoshop a bit, I'm thinking of letting the sub lapse.
Yes, it can do a few things better, but it also has a monster of a footprint to run, compared to GIMP or Paint.net, and I'm debating, now, whether those few things are worth it to me in the long run. (The HDRI thing, in particular, seems less and less important compared to other solutions)
You should consider Paintshop Pro. It's almost as good as Photoshop, minus some of the really powerful tools that you won't be using anyway. For myself, I use PSP for all of my photography post-work... it really depends on your workflow though!
For gods sake NEVER expose the flerbjet filter with the bamf filter, you'll warp snarg coils and damage the snigglezard baffles causing gifflegront core to meltdown and explode.
Don't even joke about that... Geez.
I couldn't do without Photoshop; too much of my business depends on it. I agree about Paintshop Pro. I've been using it for years. I liked X3 the best (various reasons), but unfortunately I lost the physical disc a while back and can't reinstall it on my new machine. Corel does not keep old versions in their downloads, so I guess I'll have to get X8 instead.
For freeform artists, Corel's other must-have software is Painter. It's frightfull expensive, though. Even the upgrades are over two hundred bucks.
I never much cared for CorelDraw, though that's what I use with my vinyl cutter. I like it just slightly better than Illustrator, which after years, still confounds me with its interface. (My fav vector program is good ol' free Inksape.)
I used to use Painter back when it was Fractal Painter/Design in the late 90s. Mmm. Happy memories.
Adding another +1 vote for Filter Forge. I use it pretty much daily, as a plug in for Paintshop Pro version X7.
If you are running Windows 10, then Paint Shop Pro X3 will not work anyway. That was the last version I owned at the time. It is not compatible. It let me install it just fine, but every time I tried to open it, it just crashed. Then I searched online, and I saw it was not compatible. I had to buy version X7. Don't think there was an upgrade for it from X3. But fortunately the full price was $99 and not the hundreds of dollars that Photoshop is. Then I got to buy X8 at a pre-sale price.
I was also able to upgrade Painter to the lastest version for $100. I think the upgrade price is normally $250.
Not using Win10 currently, but you never know. X3 had a very good automatic photo adjustment filter that got it right nine times out of time with little ot no additional fiddling. They changed the algorithm in X7, or I would have upgraded. I used PSP X3 pretty much just for this -- it was a terrific timesaver.
Typically, Corel allows upgrade prices covering the previous and next-to-previous versions. After that, you have to pay full price. Painter X3 still does what I need, but I'll have to upgrade sooner or later. I think they currently go back to Painter 7.
Wait, really? I have both X3 and X4 and saw no differences between each version... if it did change dramatically in X7, then UGH. I bought it for Win10 a few months ago and it's sitting on my drive waiting to be installed...
I went from X3 to X7, and don't know about the versions between. What I found was that I needed to do a lot more manual adjusting to get the same results that were "pushbutton" easy in X3.
Filter Forge 5 is STILL on sale at 80% off! I just picked it up and realized that I have to jump through hoops to get it to work with GIMP. I want to be able to use it in layers so I can apply the filters to a portion of my image.
I too am struggling with using GIMP when all the instructions out there are for Photoshop. I can't afford to shell out the money for Photoshop, so I've been thinking about the Creative Cloud. For 10 bucks per month I can get Photoshop + Lightroom. I have been waiting for them to iron out all the bugs - saw a bunch of complaints out there when it was first released.
I can confirm that Filter Forge 5 works perfectly with Photoshop CC2015 as I have both (I use Windows 10) - When FF5 was in Beta it did not work when CC2015 first came out but that problem was fixed very quickly & since then I have not noticed any problems using it with layers etc,
Filter Forge is an awesome filter and has a great support team also. I'm glad I noticed this topic as I didn't realize FF 5 was out of testing and released since my lifetime HU Award license key was associated with an old email address. After seeing this post, I submitted a support ticket and had a new Filter Forge 5 Pro license key by early the next morning.
For those that need convincing, they should run the trial; build and submit as many filters as they can during their trial period. If you get enough downloads, you can earn a discount or potentially earn a free copy. Save up enough High Usage (HU) point; and you can even use them to purchase lifetime upgrades. Here's a link to the rewards program. https://www.filterforge.com/more/freecopy.html
It's worth it to get the Pro version because of the potential to get lifetime upgrades to all future versions. It's also better as with the Pro edition because it allows you to edit filters so you can go in and tweak filters for personal use or build your own filters for personal use or for submission into the library system. FYI for those just considering... the downloads are how often someone or several some ones apply your filter. You don't get download credit for applying filters that you made. This is implemented to keep someone was just repeatedly applying their own filter to gain HU points. Tip: If you are making some seamless tiles for use with making seamless patterns, render using the stand alone application as it's faster than the Photoshop plugin.
One more tip: Save your Photoshop document before running the Filter Forge plugin. I say this because if for some reason the Filter Forge plugin crashes....Photoshop crashes along with it. It doesn't happen often but it only takes once to make it rain on your parade. There's nothing worse than doing the finishing touches on something and have to go back to scratch because you failed to save. (I'd recommend doing periodic saves of a document as you work anyway as it's a good habit.)
I've noticed several textures and shader packs sold here that were made with Filter Forge. I've also noticed several of the PAs who sell here also have filters in the Filter Forge library. Below is an example of one popular texture created using a filter "Studded Scale Leather". I just noticed when I grabbed that image and paused to note the specific name that its made by RawArt. Happily, this particular example kills two birds with one stone.
I actually don't use FilterForge as a filter exactly... FilterForge is SLOW, and using it attached to Photoshop is astonishingly slow.
That said, it's ability to generate wide ranges of texture, and to filter specific images, is astoundingly awesome and has saved me huge amounts of money on shader/texture packs. ;)
This image, for example: http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/IK-Free-Station2-564855313
Everything in that image is actually a primitive -- the station is an elongated torus with a geoshell, the ship is made from a freebie 'ship parts,' but all those parts are just assembled cubes and torus.
The textures, ah ha. The textures came from FF. Modified a bit to function in displacement, transparency, and emission, but it all started from FF patterns.
Here's a close-up of one of the ships: http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Hyperspeed-Wallpaper-1920x1080-567687122
The energy effect is yet another FF texture.
Great looking image! I really like that. I think I'm going to download that greeble looking filter after seeing your ship. Love that energy filter effect... snagged that one when it came out.
I think the ship texture is 'Complex Tech.' There's a bunch of nifty 'ship hull' style texture generators, and the ability to make them tiling is a big part of what's so cool about FF.
Oh, and more:
http://thefarshoals.webcomic.ws/comics/46
The ceiling, floor, and walls are all FF-generated textures. I originally had fancy lights based on 'techno lights' but it ended up being a huge amount of work for something that rendered like sludge, so I punted it all for a simple flat panel light.
Thanks, went over and downloaded it. Yeah, got to love those nice metal plate filters. I know what you mean about some of the more complex filters being sluggish. My favorite is an organic one called fertilizer...renders like sludge but still it's one of my favs so I took the time to make myself some pattern tiles so I don't have to sit through a render everytime I want the effect. Here's a link to an image to an image using fertilizer as the base for the ground. (Weeds were made with clone stamp.)
http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/96009/
I use 'complex ground' for similar.
I had been planning on using it with LAMH or something, but nowadays I mainly use it as medium 'fill' texture. I might try Fertilizer, though... I had shied away from virtual grass like that, but the more I think about it, I might want to experiment.
I really like generating sand, soil, and rock textures to punch up aged content -- I can go from some quirky 512 or 1024 rock surface that can't tile to a fully tiling diffuse/bump/normal (or bump > displacement if I'm feeling feisty).
I bought FF awhile back when I managed to get it dirt cheap here. I finally got around to playing around with it for the texture generation feature. I needed a really good snow texture for my current render and I exported a couple of really nice textures. I finally figured out how to bump up the size of my texture as I wanted something in the 3000 to 4000 pixel range instead of 600. I, also, finally figured out how to render out all of the coordinating maps, too. It usually takes me a long time to figure these things out. I'm really happy with it. It is a dynamite little program. Plus I love all the fact that users have access to all of those great filters by other users.
Now, I just have to figure out how to create my own filters from scratch.
Yeah, so far I haven't quite taken that plunge. ;)
I bought FF 4.0 directly, when they were having a great sale at the end of 2014. In the first two months, I created and uploaded three filters, then got back to "work" doing other things. This summer, two of the those filters earned high usage points. That got my attention! I went back to the main site and...
Version 6 Beta is available, and it now has "Full 64-bit support." That should speed things up a bit. You can use the beta for 30 days, same as a trial for the release version. But if you have 5.0, you can get a free Beta Key to keep it running. There's more info here: FF 6.0 Beta.
I also bought Filter Forge at the 80% of sale price, otherwise I would not have gotten it.
It's a good program, but to be honest, it's overpriced at full price (even at 40% off). Additionally, there are limitations that in my opinion should not be there for a piece of software that expensive. For example, vendors typically allow installation of software in up to two systems (so you can work on your PC and laptop), as long as both instances don't run simultaneously. Not Fiflter Forge. They expect you to buy a separate license (a money grab in my opinion). Example two---you can't use FF on images larger than 3000 X 3000 pixels unless you upgrade to the "PRO" version. Really? You hold the image resloution hostage to force people to go pro.
I'm not as blown away by this program as some people, so frankly I can't recommend it. I can make textures without it just fine and only bought it when it was cheap. You have to be nuts to pay full price for it.
I think it's totally worth it at 80% off... but yeah.
I would have liked to have jumped on the 64 bit upgrade (I'm still using FF4), but it's a fair chunk of change and there have been too many amazing products coming out lately sucking up my funds.
What I like over trying to make textures myself is the ability for most textures to be seamless. That's... kind of hard when you're just doing stuff yourself.