How to Create a Painting Effect Photoshop Tutorial

By Tri Handoyo. Filed in Photoshop Want to inject a little uniqueness in your ordinary portrait photo? In todays Photoshop tutorial, we show you how to touch up your photo, giving it some painting and sketching effect as shown in image below.

The steps are pretty simple and straight-forward. Before we get started, were going to need a few things. We recommend that you download them before going into the tutorial.

Girl photo by Megancatfish (Deviantart) Grunge paper texture by Bashcorpo (Deviantart)

Lets get started! Step 1 Start by creating a new canvas of 600400 (or any sizes you think fit) in Photoshop. Create a new layer, call it "Layer 1" and place the photo we downloaded earlier inside.

Step 2 In this step, well first turn it ito a black and white photo. You can use any technique, but we are going to make use of the Hue/Saturation. Look for Hue/Saturation under Adjustments palette (Windows > Adjustment). Decrease its Saturation value to -100. A "Hue/Saturation 1" layer will then be added to your Layers palette.

With "Layer 1" selected, find and add Color Balance under Adjustments palette. A "Color Balance 1" layer will then be added to your Layers palette. Under the Color Balances Adjustment palette, switch Tone to Shadows and the following values:

Cyan/Red: -59 Magenta/Green: -100 Yellow/Blue: -92 Cyan/Red: -5 Magenta/Green: -1

Then switch Tone to Highlights, and enter the following values:

Yellow/Blue: -50

Your temporarily result will look something like the image below. Lets go ahead and merge all the layers. To do that, well first select all 3 layers "Hue/Saturation 1", "Color Balance 1" and "Layer 1" and then we hit Control + E (or Layers > Merge Down). Lets call our new marged layer "Girl"

Step 3 Create a new layer with command Ctrl + Shift + N, fill it with white color with command Ctrl + Backspace. Move it bottom so it stays below the "Girl layer" Double click "Girl" layer to bring up the Layer Style dialog. Under the Blend If: section, look for the white triangular of This Layer:, hold the Alt key, and drag the white triangular towards the left until you reach the number 191/255.

After that, merge all layers with command Ctrl + E. Make sure our layers name is still "Girl" Step 4 Hit Ctrl + Shift + N to create a new layer under "Girl" layer, fill it up with white color with command Ctrl + Backspace. Make sure the "Girl" layer is selected, hit Ctrl + J seven times to create seven new copies. Turn all Girl copy X layers off by clicking on the eye icon on the left of Layers palette. This leaves us with the original "Girl" layer. With it selected, do a Motion Blur (Filter > Blue > Motion Blur) the follwing values for:

Angle: -22 Distance: 484.

Next, lets add some Watercolor effect (Filter > Artistic > Watercolor) and set the following values for:

Brush Details: 1 Shadow Intensity: 0 Texture: 3

Hit OK, and set the layers Opacity to 60% and name it "Wet Brush 1".

Step 5 Moving up the Layers palette, look for the "Girl Copy", click on its eye icon to make it visible. Apply Motion Blur (Filter > Blur > Motion Blur) with the following values:

Angle: 22 Distance: 247

Then we add Watercolor (Filter > Artistic > Watercolor) like we did in Step 4. No change to Watercolor settings, hit OK when done. With the layer selected, set its Opacity to 85%. Now, lets give it a little hand-sketching feel. With "Girl Copy" later still selected, go into transformation mode with command Ctrl + T. Rotate it 90 degree CW, hit Enter/Return to confirm its transformation. Give it a little Sheer effect (Filter > Distort > Shear) as showned in the image below, and then rotate it back to 90 degree CCW.

Hit Ctrl + T again to go into transformation mode. Move it back to fit the canvas, and decrease its height for about 40%.

With "Girl Copy" layer still selected, click Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of Layers palette to give it a mask layer. Select the Gradient Tool with the command G, and give the mask layer a gradient of white (top) and black (bottom).

Now, you may notice some hard edges and we are going to clean it up. Select Brush Tool with the command B with the following values:

Size: 150px Hardness: 0% Opacity: 30%

Paint on the hard edges and corners repeatly to smoothen things up.

Step 6 Select "Girl Copy 2" layer, click the eye icon to make it visible. Get Sprayed Strokes (Filter > Brush Stroke > Sprayed Strokes) and set the following values:

Stroke Length: 20 Spray Radius: 20 Stoke Direction: Right Diagonal

We proceed to getting some Angled Strokes (Filter > Brush Stroke > Angled Strokes) and give it the following values:

Direction Balance: 100 Stroke Length: 50 Sharpness: 10

Set the Opacity of this layer to 70% and double click it to bring up the Layer Style dialog. Under Blend if: section, hold Alt key and drag white triangular towards the left until you see the number 144/221. Click OK to return to the canvas, select Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) and give it a Radius value of 0.8px. Name this later "Dark Strokes" and set its blending mode to Hard light.

Step 7 Select "Girl Copy 3" layer, click eye icon making visible. Give it a Crosshatch (Filter > Brush Stokes > Crosshatch) with the following values:

Stroke Lenght: 50 Sharpness: 14 Strength: 3

Then, give it Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) of 0.4px. Set the layers Blending mode to Multiply, and lastly, name the layer "Crosshatch"

Step 8 Yeap, you guessed it. Open up "Girl copy 4". Change its layer Opacity to 85%. Now, with "Girl copy 4" selected, hold the Alt key and click Add layer mask on the bottom of Layers palette. This allows us to add layer mask but hiding it at the same time. Get the Brush tool with the command B, and select the following values:

Size: 150px Hardness: 0% Opacity: 20%

Make sure the foreground color is white, start painting repeatedly on the face and body and to reveal them. Focus on main parts like eyes, lops and nose. Use White color to reveal parts you want to show, and Black to hide them. Our aim here is to maintain artistic and sketching effect; make it looks dirty, but not too dirty. You get the drift.

Once you are happy with the result, we fall back to "Crosshatch" layer. Select the layer, hold the Alt key and add a Layer mask. Do the same as you previously did paint it with Black and/or White brush until you get similar result like the image below.

Step 9 Next, we go to "Girls copy 5" layer. Double click the layer to bring up Layer Style dialog, change Blend Mode to Color Burn. Again with the later selected, hold the Alt key and click Add layer mask button. Our aim here is to make the face and body darker so we grab the Brush tool with command B and repeately painting on those parts until you get result like the image below.

Step 10 Now we want to add some edges on it. Select the "Girl copy 6" layer, click on its eye icon to make it visible. Look for filter effect Glowing Edges (Filter > Stylize > Glowing Edges), set the following values:

Edge Width: 1 Edge Brightness: 20 Smoothness: 10

Click OK, then hit command Ctrl + I to invert it. Set the images Brightness/Contrast (Image > adjustments > Brightness/Contrast) to:

Brightness: 150 Contrast: 100

Set the layers Blending Mode to Multiply and Opacity 75%. Again, like our previous steps, hit Layer mask button while holding Alt key. Get the Brush B tool, paint gently on the image to reveal some smooth edges. Name this layer "Edges".

Step 11 Moving on, turn on "Girl Copy 7" layer. Our goal here is to get some wet brush the shoulder, well do something similar to what we did in Step 5. Call up Motion Blur (Filter > Blur Motion Blur), set the following values:

Angle: 0 Distance: 600px

Give it Watercolor (Filter > Artistic > Watercolor), hit OK with default settings. Then we bend it with Shear effect (Filter > Distort > Sheer). Use command Ctrl + T to go into Tranformation mode, rotate the image a little to the left (or right) and hit OK. Hold Alt key and click Add Layer mask, and paint some White Color with Brush B tool over the shoulder.

Step 12 Now wed like to enhance the texture effect for this art. Download Paper texture v5 by Bashcorpo, pull it inside our working PSD file and fit it on top of our layer. Hit Ctrl + Shift + U to Desaturate it, and change the layers Blending Mode to Darker Color. Now, because the texture image is actually bigger than our image, you can move it around to see which part of the texture fits best.

Step 13 Itd will be nice to give the image some Sin City effect. Lets go ahead and add some red color for the glasses. To do it, go to Adjustments palette (Windows > Adjustments) and click on the Hue/Saturation button. A "Hue/Saturation 1" layer will then be created. Check the Colorize checkbox, and the following values:

Hue: 0 Saturation: 20 Lightness: 0

Select the Layer mask, and hit command Ctrl + I to hide all the reds. To reveal the red color over the glasses. lets use a standard soft round Brush B with the following settings:

Size: 80px Opacity: 30%.

Repeat clicking on the center of the glasses to get feather effect, like whats shown in the image below.

Step 14 We are almost done! Now if you are unsatisfied with any of the effects, feel free to go down each of the layers and give it some final touch-ups with Brush B tool. Remember, Whites to reveal, Blacks to hide. We hope you get a similar effect like the image below.

know some of my techniques, and others, you may not. So, lets get started. Step 1 Open the Cosplay Girl image. Special thanks to Priestess Shizuka for her permission to use this image. You can find the image here. Crop it (Ctrl + C) to get rid of those black edges at the top and bottom.

Step 2 Notice that the image isnt smooth enough, especially the hair, so I want to make it smoother by increasing the amount of the pixels. Choose Image > Image size, or hit Alt + Ctrl + I on the keyboard. In the resolution column, change the value to 200 pixels/inch or more. And then click OK.

Step 3 Now I want to level it, to make this image better. As you can see when we open the histogram (Window > Histogram), the histogram tells us that this image suffered an unbalance tonal range. The gap at the light area (right side) means the highlight areas are not as bright as they could be. Thats why the image looks rather dull.

It will be good if we can trace the brightest, darkest and midtone pixels of this image to apply proper level adjustment on it. This is so Photoshop can convert the brightest pixels in this image to become pure bright (pure white), darkest pixels to be pure dark, and the midtones as well, for ideal tonal distribution. To do that, duplicate the background layer by hitting Ctrl + J. Create a new layer under it by hitting Ctrl + Shift + N, and then, fill it with white color (Ctrl + Backspace).

Step 4 Target layer 1, and double click it to bring up the Layer Style dialog box. On the Blending Options window, drag the white triangle to the left, until it almost meets the black triangle on the left post. The remaining spot is the darkest pixel in this image.

Step 5 Take the Color Sampler tool, change the Sample Size to 3 by 3 Average, then point it to one of those remaining spots in this image. Weve got sample 1 here the darkest pixels.

Step 6 Repeat step 4, but this time in the Layer Style window, do the opposite by dragging the black triangle to the right. Again with the Color Sampler tool, point it to the one of those remaining spots. Weve got sample 2: the lightest pixels.

Step 7 This time we want to trace the midtones. Repeat step 4, and in the Layer Style window drag the black and white triangles to the center, around 127.5 (= 255/2). However, when we drag it close to 127.5, the spot sample becomes too narrow, with a focus on the girl only, not the background, thus we should drag the black triangle to 121, and the white triangle to 134 (6.5 units either way of 127.5). That will be the equal value for both of them. Then, with the Sampler Color tool, take a sample from one of those remaining spots. Here weve got Sample 3: the midtones.

Step 8 Now target Layer 1, double click it to bring up the Layer Style dialog box, and then reset those triangles to the original post. Now, with the Sampler tool still active, you should indications as shown below:

You can use actual pixel mode when tracing those spots, to get more accurate results, but in this case, I think what we did before is enough. Step 9 Now, create a Levels Adjustments layer above layer 1. On the Levels Adjustments window, use the eyedropper to set the black point. Click on the eyedropper, at black, then on Sample 1 that we made previously.

Step 10 For the midtones, click the eyedropper for gray point, point and click it to Sample 3. And last, click the eyedropper for white point, then point and click Sample 2.

Now, what weve got here is an image with an ideal tonal and color range. Weve got pure black, pure white and the tonal spans mathematically ideal. With a quick visual check, you can see that the image is indeed getting better. Thats the best I can achieve for this image so far. Step 11 Now lets add some details and emphasize some parts of the image. Of course, Photoshop cant create any details, but it can reveal or enhance it. First, hit Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E to merge the layers without flattening all layers beneath it. Target this new layer, then go to Image > Calculations. This will bring us to the Calculations dialog box.

Step 12 After taking a closer look at each channel, you will see that the green channel contains the most details, so were going to use that channel as a patch. Were going to multiply it to get a more significant result. In the Calculations dialog box, set the value as shown below.

Step 13 The result will be located at the bottom of the Channels palette, name it Alpha 1. Click it, select all (Ctrl + A), copy (Ctrl + C), and then go back to the Layers Palette and paste it (Ctrl + V) on top of all the layers. Then set the Blending Mode to Soft light. Name it Basic.

Step 14 The dark details distribute nicely, but there seems to be too much light. Lets decrease it a little. Double click the Basic Layer to bring up the Layer Style dialog box, then while holding the Alt key, move the white triangle to the left; it will separate the triangles to give us a smooth transition.

Step 15 On step 13, we may have lost some details on her clothes; so lets fix that. To do that, add a layer mask for this Layer (Basic Layer), and brush that area with the soft black brush, to get back some detail from the underlying layer. I use a Soft Round Brush with size 50 px, Hardness 0%, and Opacity 20%. Make sure you target the Layer Mask Thumbnail on the Layers Pallete before brushing.

Step 16 Now lets smooth out the skin especially the right shoulder. To do that, hit Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E again and apply the median filter. Choose Filter > Noise > Median. Set the radius to 10 pixels. Again, apply a layer mask to this layer, Hide All by holding the Alt key when you click the Add Layer Mask button. Use a white smooth brush to cover the rough areas, but leave the hair and edges. Name this layer Smooth Skin.

Step 17 Now lets sharpen the image. Like before, hit Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E, and name it Sharpen. Copy this new layer by hitting Ctrl + J. Hide the copy by clicking the eye icon on the Layers Palette. And then target the original Sharpen layer, go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Set the radius to 2 pixels, and change the Blending Mode to Vivid Light. We can see now, how the details become more vivid in this image. However, the hair has also sharpened and looks rough, which is not wanted, so, lets add a layer mask again, reveal only some parts: eyes, nose, lips and clothes using a smooth soft brush.

Step 18 Now target the Sharpen Copy layer that weve made before. Make it visible. Name it Smooth Hair, because this time I want to smooth out the hair using this layer. Go to Filter > Stylize > Diffuse. Select Anisotropic, and then click OK. Add a Layer Mask, and hide all areas except the hair. Zoom in to see the result.

Step 19 Finally, create the Hue/Saturation adjustments layer on top. Set the Saturation value to 20 to give this image more color. You can compare this final result with the original image, by simply holding the Alt key, and clicking on the eye icon of the original layer image. Final result And walla, heres our final image! You can download the PSD here.