Tutorial (link): Warhol, Andy Warhol, Pop art effects

[Kristen]

I stumbled upon this link

http://www.photowow.com/

and I was really impressed with their pop art portraits. I have searched the web for a tutorial explaining how to do this, but have come up empty handed. So, as a result I have been trying to figure it out myself. I have took a photo of my son, and have transformed that into what I think is pretty similar to Warhol's style, but it isn't quite there yet.
If anyone has any suggestions or perhaps a tutorial, it would be much appreciated. I have been working at this for over a week now. I will include the normal portrait and the pop art portrait.
Here's what I did.
I isolated my son from the original background. Put him on his own layer. Used channel mixer to convert to B&W. Duplicated layer. Turned that layer off so it was not visable. Used threshhold adjustment set to 3. Made a gradient map adjustment layer. Forground color purple, background color yellow. Merged visable. Made other B&W layer visable & used photocopy filter. I made a bright green background layer and adder a few brushstrokes.

[DannyRaphael]

Hi Kristen:

Welcome to RetouchPRO.

While I was doing some web research on Andy, I ran across http://www.mydavinci.com/j/home.jsp that also offers their version of Warhol. I thought it was interesting in their examples of kids, they didn't mess with skin tones, just the surrounding colors. For non-people pics, they went to (color) town everywhere.

It looks like you've developed a very unique and convincing method yourself, so I don't have any brilliant suggestions at this point. Have you tried the Stylize > Solarize filter yet. Seems it would fit in somewhere.

Here are some resources I found on the subject:

Other commercial sites offering Warhol-like images:
* http://www.photowow.com/
* www.photosyrup.com

Tutorials:
* Leah from RetouchPRO:

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=8713

* EScrappers (T. Paul): http://www.escrappers.com/silkscreen.htm
* CreativePRO: http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/21897.html
* CreativePRO 2 (pop art): http://tinyurl.com/4v2go
* PSP specific, but general enough that it can be used by Photoshop users:

http://www.psppower.com/2004winter/WarholEffect.htm

Sites showing actual Warhol prints (for sale). These would be a good sources of ideas if one wanted to create some Warhol-like effects.
* http://www.callihan.com/art/warhol.html
* http://www.cvm.qc.ca/mboudreault/Im...0%20Marilyn.jpg

= = = = =

Again, welcome aboard. Hope to see more of your creativity in the future.

~Danny~

[sdubose99]

I found Warhol's Predator action.

enjoy!

Scott

- - - - - - - -

Two more actions added to the .zip attachments.

~Danny~

[jch71566]

I got to thinking about the Warhol-style of poster art, and decided to give it a whirl.
First thing, I changed the background color to have a hue contrast with the face. Next, I started by simplifying. I used a combination of the plugins named "Cutout" and "Poster Edges". This allowed me to get a managible pallet.

Next, I used the free FlamingPear plugin "Koyto Color" to transform the colors. First time through, I kept everything at 50, except Saturation which was 100. This was the first image in the upper-left of the composite. Next, I successively ran Koyoto Color 8 times with Hue set at 61 (50+(100/9)) and everything else at 50. I pasted the images into the composite in a checkerboard pattern going down columns and over rows. So, the 2nd image is the lower-left, 3rd is middle, 4th is upper-right, etc.

I've attached the result and the original.

Oh yeah, the guy looking in the picture is Me!

-Jeff

[roger_ele]

This is hilarious, I just spent two weeks racking my brains trying to figure out how to do this - a customer wanted a photo turned into this style ... this was hard because pop art is so not my passion ... but it was a good exersize in changing how I approached the problem.

I finaly stacked color adjustment layers, masked as needed for the top layers, and then floated black detail with the rest transparent, but I did it in sections in order to get the shapes I needed for the person to be recognizable. Hope this makes sense, I will post a tutorial when I get a chance.

Roger

[davidis]

Pop Art

I found this forum by searching on pop art tutorials. I made a fair Warhol style portrait by using smart blur and poster edges.

[Neve]

Hi and welcome to RP....we can't see that too well, do you have a larger image for posting please.

[DannyRaphael]

I found this forum by searching on pop art tutorials. I made a fair Warhol style portrait by using smart blur and poster edges.

Hi David:

I'm glad you found our forum and you took a shot at a Warhol effect.

Something went wrong with your upload. Use Photoshop's File > Save for Web command. You can use it to easily size images below the 100KB maximum. Usually images sized about 8"x10" at 72 ppi work fine.

Welcome aboard.

~Danny~

[davidis]

Pop Art

I will try again. If I fail again, I will have to read the directions.

I would like to find a way to produce good quality pop art consistently. I am reposting my first effort where I used smart blur followed by poster edges.

[DannyRaphael]

I will try again. If I fail again, I will have to read the directions.

I would like to find a way to produce good quality pop art consistently. I am reposting my first effort where I used smart blur followed by poster edges.

You done good on the upload. The attachment opens fine.

re: "I would like to find a way to produce good quality pop art consistently."

Do you plan to print your works commercially? If so, in what sizes?

[w10d]

Pop Art styles

I did a series of Pop Art style photos for a magazine, some are posted here:

http://www.pressbookpro.com/homebook.asp?owner_id=33141&langue_id=2

For the Warhol style I found it useful to work seperately on the colour & luminosity, initially with LAB mode, but then using layers & blending modes in RGB. Finally, images the images tended to look too pure, so I introduced noise, posterization & textures, though some of that doesn't really show up on web sized graphics...

[DannyRaphael]

William:

You do some fine work. Your site is an inspiration for anyone aspiring to be creative.

Your Warhol example is among the best I've seen. Appreciate the words of advice on coloring.

~Danny~

[w10d]

Thanks!

Danny, Thanks for your kind words.

I have to admit I've always been interested by the way computers can blur the distiction between photography & other graphic arts, but rarely get to fully explore it in my work.

When I first looked at a LAB image (it was a face) & switched off the L channel I was struck by how the simple blocks of colour had a 'pop art' look to them. On & off I've played around with ways of exploiting that. The Pop Art shoot was a lucky chance to try out some of the techniques I'd be playing with for years.

(Incidentally, the pool pictures were much older, and based on the look of David Hockney's work - but I thought they fitted the Pop Art theme of that book).

William.

[davidis]

Thanks

Danny, thanks for the help. In answer to your question, I am retired and have no comercial desires. Although, it might be nice to make enough to pay for some materials.

[DannyRaphael]

Danny, thanks for the help. In answer to your question, I am retired and have no comercial desires. Although, it might be nice to make enough to pay for some materials.

I'm retired too... ain't it great to be able to play with this sort of thing?

OK... For prints 8"x10" or smaller the smart blur and poster edges method you're using should hold up fairly well. If you were going to make "big prints" (for wall posters or the like), the poster edges effect might come out looking pretty ragged.

Continued success as you experiment and explore.

~Danny~