Ew, displacement is nowhere near as good as it was back in the 90s! I used it decades ago, in CorelDRAW (Photo-paint to be more specific). The modern implementations suck in comparison. It used to be that a displacement map would displace pixels based on the grayscale value of the map. So if a pixel in the map was white, it would fully move the pixel. Black pixels in the map wouldn’t be displaced at all. Grays between white and black would displace partially, so a soft edge around displaced pixels would result. I just did a test in both GIMP and Affinity Photo, and the maps are converted to 1-bit color (black and white only, harsh edges), and the result is inferior to what the effect with the same name “displace” used to do decades ago. Yuck. I searched for a setting to act as grayscale instead of black and white but didn’t see such a setting in Affinity Photo or GIMP. Super lame implementation in my opinion. I’m very surprised by this.
Maybe my memory is horrible, and displacement has always been a 1-bit movement of pixels. I sure thought it used to smoothly gradate the edges based on grayscale values, but eh. Whatever. To soften the edge pixels of the grunge mask you could always use a gaussian blur with a pixel or two if you don’t want the harsh 1-bit rasterized edges.
Now I feel like resurrecting CorelDRAW 8 that I have on CD to see if my memory is just wrong. I used CorelDRAW back until version 3 in 1992. It was awesome even back then. It had amazing procedural texture fills that were way ahead of its time. No one else did much with procedural fills until decades later. Of course 3D software does this now, as well as GPU shader filters and so on. Even the best bitmap editors today still don’t have the procedural texture generation capabilities CorelDRAW had 30 years ago. Most only have simple things like perlin noise (weak!). Unfortunately I don’t think CorelDRAW 8 would even run in compatibility mode anymore. It’s so ancient. I tried installing it maybe 5 or 7 years ago and remember having a hard time with getting it to work.
I have a late version of Corel PaintShop Pro installed (I never use it anymore), and it’s displacement map effect also is 1-bit edges. Weird. Now I’m doubting my memory of past glory. Maybe it always sucked. Maybe “sucks” is a bit harsh, but I see it as a missed opportunity. I think the effect would look cooler if it had gradated edges.
Maybe I knew this years ago and I worked around it by displacing gradients. For example, if you start out with an image with a box gradient (or you apply a big gaussian blur to your black border first), the 1-bit displacement will appear soft… I’ll assume that’s the case, that I was smarter back in the day and figured out gradient sources displace better than 1-bit border boxes.
Black Border With No Gradient, With Displacement Map Applied
Same Image With Blurred Edges, With Identical Displacement Map Applied
Obviously both looks have a place, and one isn’t “better” than the other, but I prefer more organic displacements with at least slight gradient to them.
