I’m trying to refresh my skills with the displace filter. I’m trying to replicate Bert Monroy’s "waving flag" as shown in the recent Revision3.com video blog.
Whenever I try to use the displace filter, as soon as I load the displacement map, instead on a nice flag wave I ge the flag with superimposed text messages…. that I can’t quite read. They seem to be in English German, French, and Chinese?
What’s going on here? How do I fix it?
Oh yes. I’m using an Intel iMac and Photoshop CS2.
I hadn’t thought about that, but it does look similar. Unfortunately I can’t read it. And my underlying image… in this case a flag obscures the text. For some reason it only happens when I try a map made with the 50% gray background as described in Bert’s podcast. If I use another image map made from the green channel of another picture everything seems to work OK.
I haven’t found the pattern of the problem. The only thing for sure is that when I use the images Bert provided and follow the instructions in the podcast. I get these strange message instead of the expected wavy flag.
I’ll do little more digging. Thanks for the observaton. John
When you save the displacement map, make sure Save Preview or Save Composite (whatever it’s called) is turned on in your Preferences. That is usually it, but I’m not entirely sure with what you are describing.
I jiggered the images a bit so I could see the writing. It says in four languages that this Photoshop file was not saved with a composite image. ( not sure what that means) Some displacement has occurred because the text is in red white and blue colors displaced from the fields of those colors. There is no wavyness in the flag however.
Also there seems to be somewhat of a problem because the color space of the two files isn’t the same. But not sure why that should impact the displacement.
Also the window title of one image says Flag.psd @ 100% (layer 1, RGB /8*) The other says ….. (layer 1, RGB /8) (i.e. no asterisk. What does the asterisk mean?
I checked the preferences and the Save preview box was checked. I "resaved" both Monroy files and it did the same thing again on running the displacemennt filter.. So that doesn’t seem to be the key.
The suggestion about flattening the map image was the magic bullet! I did that and Displace worke a slick as …..
It certainly isn’t obvious. There was only one layer in that file to start with. I had copied a layer, opened a new document, pasted the contents of the clipboard, and the saved. That image gave me the 4 language warning!.. If I then open that map, flattened it, and save it, then THAT map worked just fine.
I just noted that the "bad" file did not have a background layer. And the flattened one does.
Not sure whether this problemm is a bug or a feature <grin> or why it happens, but thanks for your help. This has been bugging me ever since I tried out the displace filter shortly after I got CS2. Maybe it was fuxed in CS3.
