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Displace
Considerations
Solid
Channels
Circle Grads
Gradients
PSD
Curve It
Tweakables
Scans
Broken China
Bulge
Math 1
Math 2
Heat Waves
Reflection Maps
Power Distort

Other
Cannify
Extrude
Whispies
AMP
Brush Making
Picking Colours
13 Revisited
Levels
Pixel Shuffle
UVW 2
Pui Pui
Light Rig

E-Mail

PSD - Layer it up!

A D-Map is a PSD document. Treat it as such. Give it bunches of Layers with all of those tricks you know. After all, Displace won't accept anything but a PSD. Might as well take advantage of it.

However, there is a problem. Displace can't read just any ol' PSD. Yes, there is one little thing that makes a difference, and that little thing is saving a preview or composite with the PSD.

 

-Edit > Preferences > Saving Files

This is the PS 6 version. If I remember correctly, it is slightly different than the PS 5 version. I have no clue what the PS 7 version looks like. Which ever version you are using, it should be fairly easy to find.

 

PS can read all the Layers and put it together for you to work with - Displace can't and needs a little help. That help comes in the form of a preview or composite. This is basically an extra, invisible Layer of the document flattened placed in the file when it's saved. Displace looks for this to operate. If it's not present and your D-Map has Layers, then Displace will puke. It's a pretty nasty affair.

Be aware that saving that extra data in your PSDs will increase the file size. This can be a pretty nasty affair as well when file size really matters. Personally, I leave it on. However, I have had to turn it off a few times to get file size down so I could tranfer the file. File size on my harddrive isn't really a concern, but when moving files it can be a serious concern. Know what I mean?

This little tip is compliments of Steve. As I've said, I turn it on and leave it on. Well, I turned it on a long time ago with out knowing fully what it was all about. One day I send a Layered D-Map to Steve and he couldn't use his own variation of it because his is turned off. Through his damn fine detective work, the mystery was solved. Kudos to Steve.

So, what does all this mean? Oh, it means lots of cool stuff. It means Layers, Layers, and more Layers. It means that all those cool tricks wth Layers that you've learned are applicable here as well.

Come with me and take a peak.
 

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