Turn any pic into a painting
Find out if your photo works as a watercolour
No-one can resist seeing what a favourite photo might look like as a watercolour painting. This technique is quick and easy, so you don’t have to spend too long finding out how the result looks. The main aim is to simplify the original picture by reducing the detail that’s present: this is done by reducing the resolution, then applying an artistic filter. To give an authentic feel, I’m also going to incorporate a line-art effect, to give the idea that the paint has been applied over a sketch of the scene.
Watercolours are always great fun to do. When you choose your image, pick something with bold shapes and strong colours, so the detail still holds together when it has been simplified.
Open your picture in Photoshop. Go to Image > Image Size. Tick the Resample box and change Resolution to 125 Pixels/Inch. Click OK and press Ctrl/ Cmd+J twice to create two duplicated layers. In the Layers panel, ensure that the uppermost layer is highlighted and active. Now go to Filter > Stylize > Find Edges. You’ll get a coloured outline effect. To turn it into black and white, press Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+U. Open Levels with Ctrl/Cmd+L and move the sliders under the Histogram to get a simpler outline that looks like a pencil sketch. I used 0, 3.16 and 255 in the Input levels. Click OK, then click where it says Normal and change the Blending Mode to Soft Light. This will superimpose the sketch over the layer beneath. 1
Click on the middle layer to make it active, then go to Filter > Filter > Gallery… From the Artistic dropdown menu, select Palette Knife and set the three sliders to 10, 3 and 0. After clicking OK, press Ctrl/Cmd+U to open the Hue/Saturation palette, and increase the Saturation slider to around 30 to get punchy colours. Click OK to confirm the changes.
Click on the top layer to make it active. Go to Filter > Filter Gallery… once more. (Make sure it’s the one with the three dots after it.) Select Cutout and try settings of 6, 4, 2 in the control panel to get a much sketchier look to the line art. Click OK to finish, then save your pic under a new name via File > Save As. 2