I'm trying to figure out how to convert photos to watercolor.

Report · Jun 07, 2020

Hello all,

I am trying to turn photos into watercolor like the one in the picture I'm including. All of the tutorials I've combed through seem to be a different style than what I am looking for. If anyone has any tips or some literature on the subject and can steer me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

The original is a picture of one of my ferrets, Bear, who passed away earlier this year. My wife had someone make the watercolor picture of this but I am trying to do the other 3 I need by myself.

Report · Jun 08, 2020

I don't think you're going to find an all out single tutorial on this, which ultimately is the point. The example you provided alone would require soem major work and involves multiple techniques, beginning of course with creating a cut-out to isolate the little rascal and potentially having to further separate individual parts liek the eyes. From the example the apparent things are:

posterization/ cartoon effect
heavy re-coloring of the toon effect with adjustments
gradient overlay
various color specks from other image sources
a few recognizable paint-overs and random brush strokes

On top of it, some of that may have required multiple layers, playing around with blending modes and again tweaking the colors of these elements to get the desired effect. Not impossible to do, but at least a project for an extended afternoon - per image - assuming everything is at hand and the source images are good enough to facilitate things like creating the cut-out.

Mylenium

Report · Jun 08, 2020

Thank you so much! Your response at least puts me in the direction of learning how to do this even if it does involve multiple steps. I am completely new to digital art creation but am willing to learn. I will look up tutorials on each of the things you have mentioned until I am able to take some courses on the subject. Thank you again!