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Phil mentioned a Deke McClelland tutorial video in his Photo-Based Art challenge #1, so I decided to try it out. I have to admit, I had a really hard time getting the same result as the tutorial, but after playing around with it for a while, I came up with something that is at least passable - I think.
The technique is supposed to create a "cool, crayon-drawn version of the image - something like a hand-painted photograph." (That is hand-painted against a neutral background.) Here's the steps from the video:
1. Open two images. One image is the neutral background that you want to "draw" the other image on. The neutral background in the video looks almost like sandpaper to me. I don't know how else to describe it, but it is definitely textured! The image which will be "drawn" in the video is of a girl - and the photo itself is fairly dark. (I tried this technique with light photos and didn't have much luck - not sure why.)
2. Working on the photo to be painted, go to the green channel and duplicate it. (I think that you can use the red channel as well - and in fact sometimes this provides better contrast of the lines in the photo and produces a better end result.)
3. Select the copied green channel. Filter->Stylize->Find Edges.
4. Invert the copied green channel so that you now have white lines on a black background.
5. Still working on the copied green channel, run Filter->Other->Maximum at a setting of about 4. (You'll need to play around with this depending on the photo and how faint/strong your lines are to begin with.)
6. Run Filter->Noise->Median 4 (match the value you chose for the Maximum filter) to round off the square "dots" created by the previous step.
7. Run Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur to soften the sharper edges of the Median filter. Use a setting of at least 2 - or higher depending on how much softening you want.
8. Select the RGB channel, then control click on the copied green channel to load the selection.
9. Using the Move Tool (and making sure the pointer is the one with the scissors so that you're "cutting out" the selection), click and drag to the neutral background image.
10. The movie then says to change the blending mode of the cut-out layer to "overlay", but I can NOT get that to work the way the video does. I have found that the "color burn" mode seems to work well though. You'll have to play around with it for yourself, I think.
I've attached an image that I made using this technique. It took me FOREVER to find an background image that would work. Now that I know this works, perhaps it will be easier to find others. I have to admit that I have a couple of adjustment layers "helping" this image in my PSD file. One is a Hue/Sat adjustment layer for the cut-out image where I really boost up the saturation (55) and darken it a bit (lighten at -20). I also added a color adjustment layer to that same layer so make the colors look a little more brown as opposed to bright red or bright yellow (the two choices I seemed to get using the Hue slider.)
Perhaps I'm just not using the "right" images for this technique, but I'm not sure I'm happy with the results. I'll keep trying though.
Jeanie
The technique is supposed to create a "cool, crayon-drawn version of the image - something like a hand-painted photograph." (That is hand-painted against a neutral background.) Here's the steps from the video:
1. Open two images. One image is the neutral background that you want to "draw" the other image on. The neutral background in the video looks almost like sandpaper to me. I don't know how else to describe it, but it is definitely textured! The image which will be "drawn" in the video is of a girl - and the photo itself is fairly dark. (I tried this technique with light photos and didn't have much luck - not sure why.)
2. Working on the photo to be painted, go to the green channel and duplicate it. (I think that you can use the red channel as well - and in fact sometimes this provides better contrast of the lines in the photo and produces a better end result.)
3. Select the copied green channel. Filter->Stylize->Find Edges.
4. Invert the copied green channel so that you now have white lines on a black background.
5. Still working on the copied green channel, run Filter->Other->Maximum at a setting of about 4. (You'll need to play around with this depending on the photo and how faint/strong your lines are to begin with.)
6. Run Filter->Noise->Median 4 (match the value you chose for the Maximum filter) to round off the square "dots" created by the previous step.
7. Run Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur to soften the sharper edges of the Median filter. Use a setting of at least 2 - or higher depending on how much softening you want.
8. Select the RGB channel, then control click on the copied green channel to load the selection.
9. Using the Move Tool (and making sure the pointer is the one with the scissors so that you're "cutting out" the selection), click and drag to the neutral background image.
10. The movie then says to change the blending mode of the cut-out layer to "overlay", but I can NOT get that to work the way the video does. I have found that the "color burn" mode seems to work well though. You'll have to play around with it for yourself, I think.
I've attached an image that I made using this technique. It took me FOREVER to find an background image that would work. Now that I know this works, perhaps it will be easier to find others. I have to admit that I have a couple of adjustment layers "helping" this image in my PSD file. One is a Hue/Sat adjustment layer for the cut-out image where I really boost up the saturation (55) and darken it a bit (lighten at -20). I also added a color adjustment layer to that same layer so make the colors look a little more brown as opposed to bright red or bright yellow (the two choices I seemed to get using the Hue slider.)
Perhaps I'm just not using the "right" images for this technique, but I'm not sure I'm happy with the results. I'll keep trying though.
Jeanie
Love that fabric texture.
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