Create an Illustrated Look From a Photograph
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In this tutorial, I will show you how the create a stylized illustrated look from a photograph. The best part is that it requires no artistic ability! You can do this to any photo and pretty much any subject, but I think it works best with people.
Before/After
You can see a Before/After below (just roll over the image once it’s all loaded in). I bought my image from iStockPhoto – here’s the item (Note if you download the sample PSD file from Psdtuts+ Plus, the image has a watermark over it, so you’ll need to purchase it and swap it in).
Step One:
Create a new Solid Color Adjustment layer and fill it with White. Above that layer, create a new blank layer by hitting the New Layer Button at the bottom of the layer palette. Name that layer "Basic Shapes." Now turn both of those layers off.
Step Two:
We are going to use the Pen Tool (P) to trace all of the basic structural elements of the image. In my case, it will be the outline of the body and the outlines of the clothes.
With the Pen Tool selected, simply click anywhere you would like to start then continue to click and drag to trace the part you are working on with the path. To make it look more like a sketch, we are going to use a lot of small paths rather than trace the whole thing with one long path. When you come to a place where you think the path should end, hold down the Cmd (or Ctrl) key ,and click anywhere off the path. That will deselect it and now you are free to create another one. Keep doing this until all of your basic shapes are traced. Here are a few shots of how I traced my image:
A common misconception is that a path needs to be a loop. Not true. We are going to use all "open paths" in this tutorial.
Step Three:
Turn on your white layer and your blank layer. Select the blank layer. In the paths palette, drag your work path down to the New Path button at the bottom of the palette to save it. Select the Brush Tool and open the brushes palette. Select any round, hard brush preset. Under the Brush Tip Shape section, modify the brush to create a thin ellipse by bringing the roundness down to 12%. Make the angle 45 degrees. Turn on the Shape Dynamics section bring the Size Jitter to 100, the Minimum diameter to 35, and the Angle Jitter to 5.
With the blank layer still selected, hit D to make black your foreground color then right/control – click on the path and choose Stroke Path. Make sure that Simulate Pressure is checked and use Brush as your source. Hit OK. You might have to adjust the Master Diameter in the brushes palette if the lines are too thin or thick.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 a few more times, each time getting more and more detailed in what you trace. The more detail you trace, the thinner you should set the Master Diameter on the brushes palette. Each time you do a pass, make sure to apply the stroke onto a new layer.
Step Four:
Now that we have the outlines, let’s paint in some color. Duplicate the the layer that contains your photograph. Put the copy at the top, above all the other layers. Set the Blending Mode to "Color".
Hit B for the Brush Tool. In the Brushes palette set the Brush Angle to -45 degrees and turn off the Shape Dynamics. Make the brush a bit larger.
Make a new blank layer and call it "Paint." Make sure that it’s below all of your outline layers. Make sure that your foreground color is still set to black. In the properties bar, set the Opacity of the brush to 10%. Very roughly paint in the color where you want it. Be sure to release the mouse every now and then so that the color begins to multiply over itself. Don’t worry about staying in the lines too much. I used a Wacom Tablet so it was easy for me to get nice strokes but if all you have is a mouse just do the best you can.
Step Five:
Hit E for the Eraser Tool. Set the eraser brush up the same way that we did the paint brush. Make sure that the eraser brush’s Opacity is at 50%. Now go back and tidy up your paint job. I like it when you can still slightly see the paint going over the lines.
Step Six:
On my image, I want the pants to be blue instead of that peachy color, so I am going to make a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer at the very top of the layers palette. Drag the Hue slider over until you get the hue that you like. Adjust the saturation as you like. Wait, the whole image changed! Thats Ok — we are going to fix that.
Click on the layer mask thumbnail on the Hue/Sat layer and hit Cmd+I to invert it. The image will go back to the way it was before. Set your background color to white and select the Eraser Tool. Set the eraser’s opacity to 100% and paint on the mask so that the hue adjustment we made appears. Now just paint where you want the color shift.
Continue this way until you are happy with the colors.
The shirt adjusted.
The skin tone adjusted.
Step Seven:
Make one more new blank layer just below the "Paint" layer. Call it "bkg paint". Select the brush tool again and make the master diameter huge. Mine is at 200. With the brush opacity at 5% do a few really broad strokes across the whole image just to bring in a little color to the background.
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By Kyle Pero
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Just Good.
great job i like it really beautiful
that`s for a tablet, but its nice. Thx.
Very nice tutorial, thanks
Me too a graphic designer but to you may be a newcomer;steel not loosing hope ’cause of you all out their who share there works and let us help to learn more effects..Thanks
Love the end result
can u help me with it plz ….
I struggled with the colour too, not very clearly explained.
Make sure that your white-filled layer is visable and you’ll see the colour.
Really nice effect, thanks for sharing.
thanks! I didn’t get the colour at first… nice result! :)
Sick as!! I can’t believe someone can actually do that!! it must take alot of talent!
Excellent work of art and a nice tutorial too..Thanks for sharing such work with us and help us to improve our work. Nothing to say more..
Nice trick :-)
I love it!
Thanks
great .. so clever
I really like it
I was wondering for a long time to use that technique but don’t know how…
It’s really….I don’t have anything to say…
jnice job
please post video tutorials insted of boring long lines of text..that’d be useful..
rather pretty
Nice tutorial. Thanks for sharing.
Wonderful, it works perfectly!!! They look awesome and I’m addicted to doing them!
Just one thing, howcome when I paint on the background it also paints over what I’ve drawn? Is this supposed to happen? Cuz it doesnt look like it does in the example…
Very good i like
WOOT! WOOT!!! This was very fun, extremely easy and so cool!!! Thanks a ton!!!!!
cool :D
This is a very very poor tutorial. “Use pen tool” ok but how? With magnet? without magnet? how to use pen? And every time I draw a line with pen a layer named shape x (numver) emerges. What’s porpuse of Basic Shapes than? English isn’t my native language my writing is very bad sorry for that but your tutorial is as bad as my writing.
The tutorial is actually well explained imo.
If you don’t even know how to use the pen tool, start with an easier tutorial.
Don’t bash something because you don’t know what you’re doing.
I figured it no thanks to you. You need to switch pen mode shape layers to paths. If you only have wrote this info down this tutorial would be much better.
I recommed to you reading some real good tutorials to learn how to write a tutorial. Example:
http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/water-reflection/
i dont get the STEP4, “Duplicate the the layer that contains your photograph. Put the copy at the top, above all the other layers. Set the Blending Mode to “Color”"
the outline is getting the color, not the inside. :|
its called reading the whole tutorial first. i admit, this tutorial was slightly confusing, but i figured it out. if u read the next step, and did it, then the purpose of the colour blending mode might have been clearer.
really really bad tutorial, very hard to follow and lots of important info missing
yeah, it all works well – until you get to the face part. this tut has a girl with shades on – cant be done with a complete face. it needs additional drawing, and only if you know how to draw with a hand.
Is there a way to upload to your site and services, photos on our computer files. like “my pictures” etc?
You’re awesome, dude! Thanks for the tutorial :D
really really bad tutorial, very hard to follow and lots of important info missing :D
Can you create something like this using Elelments 8?? If so does anyone know how?? Thanks
does any one have any Video for this one plz or something like this turtorial i couldnt do the 2nd step need big hlep plz plz
i have a Problem how can i draw on the white how to make it look throw plz
it’s really good but it too hard to me to apply it…..
good 4 all amateur
Very Helpful and easy tutorial
wow
It’s really nice. I’d like to try it by following your procedures. I hope i can follow you properly. I’m novice in adobe photoshop i expect to learn more..
i can do it……..i know.
i know photoshop………..
it’s really hard
Actually, I have to agree with several of the posters here (and English IS my native language). I was ready to click away from this “tutorial” at Step 2. You left off some extremely important information: that the pen tool needs to be set to Paths, which is not the default setting and not something I would have known if I hadn’t seen another poster mention it.
I’m not even bothering to read the rest of your guide. Google has plenty of options for Photoshop Tutorials; I’d rather get something accomplished than spend 30 minutes trying to figure out what information you left out.
Work on that, eh?
Very nice tips. thx a lot
Damn it! I got stuck in step 4 can someone help me?
GOD like hardwork
You’re awesome, dude! Thanks for the tutorial
very bad thing
Wow this is a great tutorial! it was confusing at first, you just have to read it over a couple times to get it right :)
can someone make it as a video or something? i just don’t know how to Create a new Solid Color Adjustment layer. so confusing. i don’t even know the name of the icon in adobe photoshop.
LOVE it!!! seriously tq~
WEIRD! I was surfing the net…and all of a sudden I came across this sketch of ME! That blonde girl in the photo next to the lierjet is me!!!!