Can Anyone Help Please On A Distressed Look To Pictures

Talk about Pixelmator Pro, share tips & tricks, tutorials, and other resources.
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2020-10-15 14:21:52

I am trying to make an image look "distressed" to have it DTG (Direct To Garment) printed on a tee shirt.

I have the exact effect I am trying to accomplish at this web link for Coral Draw:

https://www.screenweb.com/content/how-c ... ed-effects

Does anyone have a more simple and manageable way of doing this in Pixelmator please?

I have Mac and iPad versions of the programs but am hopeless at this it seems.

Thanks in advance...
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2020-10-15 15:47:48

Hey there, welcome to the forum! It would be easiest to do this in Pixelmator Pro on the Mac. Here's how I would approach it:

1. Look for and download a distressed texture (or several textures) online. You'll find both free and paid textures, but I'd suggest starting with free ones for now. You can test out something like this.
2. Open the image you'll be printing
3. Choose Format > Mask > Add Mask to add a mask to the layer
4. Making sure the mask is selected (it should have a blue outline around it in the Layers sidebar), choose Format > Effects > Fill > Image to apply an image fill effect to it (you can learn more about that effect here: https://www.pixelmator.com/support/guid ... r-pro/856/)
5. Drag and drop your distressed texture image into the Image fill effect's image well in the Tool Options pane (make sure to use the JPEG version). You can also Control-click the image well and click Choose, then add the texture that way
6. Adjust the size and the position of the texture as needed — you can also experiment with its opacity
7. The mask along with the texture will make the 'worn' areas transparent, so now you can add a layer below your image and fill it with the color of the t-shirt to see what the end result will look like

Once you get this technique down, experimenting with other textures should be relatively easy.
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2020-10-15 16:01:30

Wow!

Thank you for the prompt reply - I have both Pixelmator and Pro which was on offer on the App Store a while back. I will give this a shot tomorrow morning.

Thanks Andrius - great stuff :-}
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2020-10-15 16:13:55

Perfect!

Thanks so much...
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2020-10-16 08:17:23

Can we see the end effect ? :grinning:
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2020-10-16 09:20:44

I haven't tried very hard to get something that looks good, but here's a comparison of a pattern with the texture mask and without it (placed against a black background). Creating the effect takes about 10 seconds once you know how it's done:

Image

Image

If you were to print the second image with the black background removed, the 'distressed' areas would be transparent, creating, hopefully, quite a convincing look.
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2020-10-16 10:36:49

Here is the distressed effect Jeroen - the ability to view the changes in real time is fantastic...

Image
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2020-10-19 09:59:38

Nice job, thanks for sharing!
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2020-12-02 14:36:43

Hey guys, hope you are all doing well.

We have a couple of t-shirt designs that needs to be destressed. We are proficient in applying the effects to the basic typographical designs and they look fantastic.

The question we have though is, just how tiny can those distressed specs be for them to be properly excluded from the print job (ie...left transparent for the t-shirt material to show through. Like the image Sparkoids posted above, would a DTG printer really leave those tiny black texture out of its print job?

The image below shows the extent to which we wish to distress the text...white text on black t-shirt.

Warm regards,

SR

Image
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2020-12-02 15:26:32

I think it would depend on the resolution of the printer