Embossing one object based on another

[Bizon]

I am trying to figure out how to emboss an object or the background based on a seperate layer or object. I have a bitmap that is a map and I want to add elevation through embossing but not based on the graphics of the map. I have created a greyscale object which matches the elevation of the map (white for high elevation and black for low). Is there a way to do this?

The Boss effect is not what I'm looking for. It is a digital effect (on or off) it makes discrete areas appear raised, it does not apply a smoothe elevation based on a gradient mask. With a gradient mask it simply "raises" the areas based on a threshold of the mask (where the marquee shows up). Anyway "The boss" is not what I'm looking for.

This seems like something that people do all the time. Is there a way to acheive what I'm looking for with Photo-Paint?

 

[attrofy]

I am not sure I understand what effect you are trying to acheive - do you have an example or url you could point to. It sounds like "The Boss" tool might be the tool to use, you just may be selecting things improperly, or embossing the wrong parts. Just to clarify, if you only use the mask tool, it will emboss whatever is masked - and ignore other objects. It could be that you have the background selected instead of the grayscale bitmap. It could be something as simple as moving the grayscale bitmap into place, then creating a mask of the grayscale bitmap, then embossing that. It might be more complex, and maybe have to mask the white portions for height, while masking the black portions for depth.

However, my guess would be that you want to actually incoroporate part of the grayscale with part of the map image - to give that authentic embossed look (and I assume the "emboss" tool didn't do what you wanted - since it defaults to grayscale). My guess is that the mask is not big enough. It needs to grab pixels from the map image AND your grayscale image to show the terrain "warping" off the flat parts of your map, into the greyscale of your bitmap. One thing you may need to do, and what may work best, is to move your greyscale into position, then with the greyscale still selected go to Mask -> Create from Object. Leave the mask in place (or save it as an alpha channel) and right click on the greyscale. Select Combine -> Object with Background (assuming the map IS the background - otherwise, select the map and greyscale (while holding the shift key), then right click and choose Combine -> Combine Objects Together. you could try a simple group, but it may not work the same)).

Now when you seelct the Boss tool, you will be warping both the map and the greyscale. If the "gradient" portion of the transition from Map to Greyscale isn't sufficient enough to show what you are looking for, you may have to exapnd or reduce your mask a few pixels (Mask -> Grow or Feather or Expand depending on what effect you want). If this is still not what you are looking for, report back, and we will see if there is another solution - a picture reference would be best.