Engraving

Engraving draws your picture as an ink engraving on paper: a field of fine strokes that follow the forms of the picture the way an engraver's tool does, thick where it is dark and thin where it is light, like the portrait on a banknote.

How it works

Each stroke lies along the picture's lines of equal brightness, so strokes wrap around faces, folds and shapes. Strokes stand at a depth set by brightness, so the plate has a fine relief that shifts when the camera moves. A picture change re-lays every stroke: as the front passes, each one lifts off the plate, turns the shortest way to its new direction, takes its new width and colour, and settles, like iron filings in a moving magnetic field. It makes its own light, without scene lighting.

Settings

• Cols sets how many strokes go across; Length how long they are, overlapping into continuous lines.
• Weight sets stroke width at full darkness; Relief the depth of the plate.
• Flow sets how calm the stroke directions are; Hatch the direction where the picture has no clear form.
• Lift sets how far strokes rise while turning.
• Ink colour, Plate colour, Tint and Fill set the ink, the paper and how much of the picture's colour comes through.

Cursor

Comb aligns strokes with the cursor's motion; Swirl winds them around it.

Use it for

• Luxury, finance and banknote-style art direction
• Editorial portraits and fine print