Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:23 am Post subject: Brush creation for etched money portrait effect?
If you've ever looked really closely at the way portraits are depicted on money you'll often see a dashed line which follows the contours of the form, the dashed line has a long dash, a space, then a short dash. This was created using a etching tool called a burin and on UK currency this portrait alone can take 9 months.
I need to make a life sized image of a large head and I want it to look like it's been created in this way, I was going to buy a wacom tablet and use a custom brush based on a high res scan of a large dash and short dash detail. Rather than stroke hundreds of lines drawn with the pen tool, I'd prefer to draw each line with the brush tool, if it was a simple dotted line it would be easy but the varying long, short dashes make me wonder it this is possible.
Examples attached, one is from the hundred dollar bill, another from the 5 dollar bill and the other from a head I'm working on. I don't think I described it very well - on closer inspection I can see there are several kinds of stroke and even a dot between strokes. A plugin wouldn't get these sort of details right (but thanks Steve for the link) so it's going to need to be done manually.
The head I'm working on, shown here has been built from composites of the 5 dollar bill, laid over the top of an image, resized and manipulated, it worked to a degree but I'm now coming unstuck. I'm going to try enlarging these marks from the scans - tracing them into outlines in Illustrator, then creating a pattern brush for each type of stroke and finishing the job in illustrator as I can't see how to do it in Photoshop - correct me if I'm wrong...
Joined: 05 Mar 2003
Posts: 3987
Location: Cheltenham, UK
Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2010 4:30 am Post subject:
Quote:
Banknotes are designed through an iterative process using bespoke CAD software. The Queen’s portrait, however, comes from hand-engraved plates, and is printed onto the money by a process named Intaglio. This technique, which is also used to add the lettering to the front of the notes, involves pressing ink into the paper at incredibly high pressure, making the design appear embossed. Offset litho and letterpress are also used.
There are ways in Illustrator, but I have only provided Photoshop links as this is a Photoshop forum _________________ If life serves you lemons, make lemonade!
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