: Filter, Script or Effect for smudge design Is there a filter, script or effect to create a smudge design like this: Would this be possible to create this effect programmatically or is this

@Kimberly620

This is not as hard as it seems to do, in either Illustrator or Photoshop. I would prefer illustrator as i would get all vector. This is what you do:


Rotate the image (for easier drawing), to the orientation of your lines)
Draw out form edges with the warp tool.

Tip: holding shift constrains movement to horizontal or vertical
Drag some secondary ripples
Cut out a gap with a square (or do it before step 2)
Wrap some splashes form a oval etc.
Repeat 2-5 until your satisfied
Add splatter
Rotate back.




Image 1: Resulting smudge, you can do different sizes and styles if you want (mine is thinner than the demo but essentially similar)

Could it be done programmatically? Yes no problem, a program is after all using the same process as manually doing it. But yes it would take some time to implement (as there is no good suitable high level Bézier library), nothing fancy mind you.

Thinking out loud (how would one do this algorithmically)

How would we make a algorithmic attack? Well we could try cutting the object by lines and make some vectors along those lines that oscillate on the surface. Lets draw this manually:



Insert points on the original curve at point of oscillation vector and move it onto top of the curve.



Then delete the vectors drawn (I did do this manually, so i can check the plausibility of an algorithm) and connect the edges.



Now one could perturb things a bit more too and add some noise and variation and it would be quite good... Again just no good high level Bézier library to do these kinds of things so i wont spend my time on this.

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