Watercolor Artist Action Set from Adobe Create Magazine?

[Teire]

Does this work for anyone with Adobe Photoshop 2021? It would be an amazing action set to have, but it just errors out saying "Could not rasterize because the selected pattern is not available." and that a bunch of the actions just don't work or aren't available.

This would be so cute and useful... if it ever worked. THe original article outlining the steps of how to use it is here Transform Photos into Watercolors with a Free Photoshop Action.

EDITED BY MOD: Deleted dead hyperlink.

[D02]

There was a problem with the old action files (action just hangs midway) AND the updated files were missing from Adobe. So cool of you to have provided them separately on dropbox and now it works like a charm! Thank you so much!

[seonaKM]

Hi, Im running Photoshop 25.5 and the action is still not running smoothly. can you confirm the action is able to run on this version_

[Nu1 · Accepted solution]

Hi! Just wanted to point out that the links in the official Adobe Discover page are now working with and updated version of Watercolor Artist (update late March 2024, tested on PS 25).

You can delete the previous version and use just this one.

Here is the link:

https://creativecloud.adobe.com/cc/discover/article/transform-photos-into-watercolors-with-a-free-ph...

[francois23908223ltw5]

thank you very  much !

[Nu1]

You're welcome!

[MaddeMamma]

Hey there - I know this is a year old but I was hoping you might still have info. I have the old file (was running fine until I don't know when, I haven't used it in a couple of years). It has always hung on larger files, which I know is a warning in the instructions. Normally resizing used to fix this but, now, it's erroring out on the three "smooth" commands. I can't figure out what it's trying to do in that section or I would just re-record those steps. I have confirmed that deleting the 3 commands for smooth allows the action to complete. However obviously part of the finished image is missing so it's not really a solution. The link you've shared seems to have moved and I can't find it searching the site. Do you happen to have any ideas? TIA

[Trevor.Dennis]

Are the steps all one Action?  Can Actions have comments/headings I wonder?

You say you used it before, so do you remember the effect it produced?

@Pete.Green  Started the thread on the new Action panel, so he might be the expert.

Maybe will have an idea.  Sorry to put you on the spot Pete.

[MaddeMamma]

Are the steps all one Action?  Can Actions have comments/headings I wonder?

Yes, they are all inside one action. These three offending steps (all Smooth commands) all appear to have the same parameters - 6px radius, without effect at canvas bounds. I thought that was strange. But, I suppose it could be applying the same thing to multiple layers. I don't know because this is where it hangs up and I can't see it happening. There's no stops or commands I can see that would require another command for these steps to work.

You say you used it before, so do you remember the effect it produced?

I'm still digging for an old file I didn't flatten to see if I can figure it out. I haven't been able to find one yet. It obviously produces a giant file and my habit would have been to flatten it because of that if I was happy with my adjustments to it. One of the drawbacks of a new PC that chews through actions is that it flies by so fast I can't catch what it's doing... 🙄

@Pete.Green  Started the thread on the new Action panel, so he might be the expert.

Maybe will have an idea.  Sorry to put you on the spot Pete.

Strangely enough, there are multiple other Smooth commands that ARE working. Different parameters though. Only difference I can see in the description is different radius sizes compared to the one that's failing and I don't know why that would stop it.

What's interesting is that the one's that are finishing are set to 36px. The one that's failing is set to 6px. Do actions get corrupted? Could it have also been 36px radius brush at some point and something about the smaller brush is making it mad?

I've used a lot of actions, complicated ones, too. The ones I've made for myself are simple, comparatively. I don't know how to go in a tweak part of one without knowing the big picture. Is modifying a radius like this even possible without re-recording the whole thing?

By @Trevor.Dennis

[elizabethn52808604]

I'm running PS 2022 and getting the same error. Does anybody have a solution?

[c0untryg1rl]

I successfully ran the Watercolor Artist - Photoshop Action Set with no error messages popping up. It takes quite a long time to run. When finished, the resulting image has a long stack of layers which can be used to adjust the image, background paper, and effects. I attached a screenshot of my image, along with part of the layer stack, below. It was too long to include it all. Go to the link I posted in my previous message to you, above, and download the most recent update of the Watercolor Artist - Photoshop Action Set, including the instructions. The preparatory steps before running the action are important to get it to run smoothly. One error I see a lot is the instructions say to create a new blank layer above the image and name it "focus" That has to be in all lower case with no quotes. If you capitalize focus, or use the quotes shown in the instructions, the action will not recognize that layer.

[WaltB01]

The process of creating the "focus" layer has already been included as a script (  1) SETUP  ) to automatically set up that layer, select a brush with an overlay color, and a transparency setting (which I personally readjust to 60%). It is on this layer that one "paints" the object to appear as a watercolor (which is later used as a selection template), while surrounding area is later revealed as pencil sketch effect. Personally I disable the masks of the 3 pencil sketch effects, readjust their opacities to 100% and then use a brush,set to about 10% opacity, and paint within their respective masks to hide/reveal the pencil sketchings as I choose.

 

[Trina_Kay0332]

This is impressive of the peony, can you show how you edit your photo after the action?

[JJMack]

The Second Action hangs for many users  when player in 22.0 and 22.0.1  in one  of the Actions invert step. You can break out it the hang using ESC key.  There seem to be some issue in Photoshop version 2021 with that Action.

[richardb89536042]

I have not been able to have it finish a run when using PS 2021.  The ESC key does not break it out of the hang.  I must force quit PS.

[broacher]

I've messaged the author of the actions, Nuwan Panditha (Milan), and I will report back once I get his reply. I'm running 22.2.0 and the same thing happens to me:  hangs in the second action, at 'Back Filling' step. Pressing ESC multiple times did manage to break the loop, however.

[Gary_Fresno]

No fix for this yet?  Is the author of the action still available?  It would be a shame to loose this fantastic watercolor action!

[broacher]

Yes. And it all comes down to a RTFM error that I and many others all made.

Nuwan Panditha (Action set creator) sent me this link to the instructions page/manual:

Trasforma le foto in acquerelli con un’azione gratuita di Photoshop.

Yeah, I know -- didn't work, right? But note in the text just above the still life painting near the top a second link for the updated Action Set for this, which is: Watercolor Action PS 22

I tried it and it worked fine.

[Gary_Fresno]

Thanks broacher,

After 3 downloads I finally got it to work.

Ran the action on a small psd file of 3000 px

Then tried it on a larger psd file of 4800 x 7200 px and it worked.

Hope it works again for me.

Thanks again for posting the info to get this neat action to work.

[Cader]

I tried the Watercolour action for the first time and it worked perfectly. The second time when I click on "Setup" I get an error message "The command Select is not currently available" I then click continue and it creates the focus mask as in the instructions. I then click the Watercolour Artist link and it starts to process the image but then stops after a few seconds with a message "Could not rasterize because selected panel is not available. I am new to photoshop and have read through the insructions but cannot find what the problem is. Any help would be apreciated

[Cader]

I finally found out the problem by looking at the video tutorial. I had reinstalled the actions but hadn't added the brushes and patterns so that is where the problem was. The only issue now is after the watercolour process is complete it looks as if it is causing my PC to buffer. I have just upgraded to a high spec PC so it cant be a hardware issue surely

[Kukurykus]

Please link us to that video tutorial.

[War Unicorn]

Just to add: If you have an All Apps plan, Adobe Fresco is part of that. (It doesn't transform images into watercolors (sort of); you have to do the heavy lifting yourself, but you can import images to use as a basis on another layer or convert the image into a pixel layer and do some watercolor jiu-jitsu that way.)

[Ron22305547iufo]

I'm running PS 23.1.0 and I can't seem to get the action working after many attempts.  Hopefully Nuwan Panditha will come to our rescue and modify the action so that is is more workable on the various versions of PS. If anybody has any further suggestions, I would appreciate hearing of them.

[c0untryg1rl]

I am able to run the Watercolor Artist Action Set without an error message in Photoshop CC 2023.

[That Girl There]

Hi C0untryg1rl, I have Photoshop 25. I tried with the files from your link and it didn't come out corectly. I got tons of error messages:

• The command "Smooth" is not currently available.
• The command "Make" is not currently available.
• The command "Delete" is not currently available.
• The command "Contract" is not currently available.
• The command "Expand" is not currently available.
• The command "Stroke" is not currently available.
• The command "Delete" is not currently available.

The end result is not exactly what I had intended

original image source: Adobe Stock 48640867

So, not sure what version of PS this action was created for, but it isn't working with 25.3.1.