Porcelain

The xero : porcelain filter gives an effect that is hard to describe, but which reminds me of painted porcelain. The effect doesn't show up particularly well on the thumbnails, so you may wish to click them to see the larger versions.

The subject here is our local church, St Andrew's, in Congresbury, Somerset. I've photographed the church many times, but this is the first time that I've managed to get a decent result! Most attempts have been spoiled by washed-out, or bright but heavily overcast skies, which cause my Olympus C-130L compact to under-expose for the church and foreground. This time, everything went well, however. I've already used PSP's 'Clarify' filter to clean up the image a little.

The porcelain filter has three sliders: the 'Softness' and 'Strength' sliders work together to control the overall effect, while the 'Brightness' filter is there for convenience - the algorithm used tends to darken the image, so just a little increase in brightness is often useful.

This filter can be quite slow at extreme settings. However, this is the effect we get with the settings shown above. Click the thumbnail for a better view, since it doesn't show up particularly well at this size.