VM Distortion Example Gallery

Please remember, these are not finished artwork.  All I did was choose a free public domain image and run the filters to give examples of what they can do.  You can click the thumbnails for a better look.

Most of the VM filters have several sliders that greatly vary the effects.

How I use the VM Distortion Collection

Tumbler, The Black Hole, Center Mirror, and Gear are all useful for water effects in photomanipulation.  The Black Hole is probably also useful in space art, but I haven't done much of that so I can't say.

Flip Chop, Mosaic Ripple, and Vision Impossible are good for surreal art and some textures

Radiator, Sausage, Radial Pox, Smallpox, and  Distortion By Transparency are useful abstract art when you want to keep the source colors but not the structures.

Original Image
Full size here on the photographer's Pixabay

VM Extravaganza Example Gallery

Please remember, these are not finished artwork.  All I did was choose a free public domain image and run the filters to give examples of what they can do.  You can click the thumbnails for a better look.

Most of the VM filters have several sliders that greatly vary the effects.

How I use the VM Extravaganza Collection

White Lines, Shoutin! and Vasarely are the ones I find most useful in making textures and brushes.

Cyberdelic, Edgeburner, Hallucination, Aura Detector and Psychedelic are useful for--you guessed it--trippy colorization in photomanips.

The other ones in this collection are pretty stylized in what they do.  You might find them useful if you're looking for the kind of image they generate, but they're not really my thing.

Original Image
Full size here on the photographer's  Pixabay

Gallery Below

Stuff I use: Visman Filters

The three graphic software products I'm most familiar with all come with some nice built-in filter effects.  Photoshop seems to have the most, which is probably one reason it's become the industry standard.  I've found that there are ways to reproduce most--if not all--commonly used filter effects in Paint Shop Pro.  Sometimes PSP has similar built-in effects, and sometimes it requires a work-around.  A lot of filter effects can be done manually, but the filter makes them quicker.  In addition to built-in filters, there are user-made plugins, and collecting them can get a little overwhelming after a while.  It's hard to remember which ones do what, and there are many similar ones out there.

My go-to filter set is a freeware collection (Visman or "VM") that I've been using since I first got Paint Shop Pro.  I found it on a tutorial site that no longer exists.  There are several sets and a total of around 70 filters in all.  In PSP, they appear in your Effects menu and each set has a submenu titled VM (something.)
These are primarily distortion filters.  If you're looking for artistic, painting effects, etc I recommend Xero Filters.

As for the VM filters, some are more useful than others depending on what you do.  For the most part, I make 2D collages and photomanips, or I make graphic resources.  So the ones that are useful to me may not be useful for someone else.  Some produce similar effects while others are really unique.  So what I want to do is provide an example gallery for each set.  There used to be some good ones online, but I haven't been able to find one, so I decided to make one myself.  It's going to take me a while to get them up, so check back if you're interested.

These example galleries do not contain finished artwork.  All I did was choose a free, public domain image and run the filters on them to show what the effects look like.  When I use the filters for finished work, I will link to it from here.

VM Distortion
VM Experimental
VM Extravaganza
VM Instant Art
VM Natural
VM Toolbox