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Create a Painting from a Portrait Photograph Photoshop Tutorial
I have to admit that making the image in this tutorial took me over 3 hours, but that was in the midst of taking snapshots with every step, writing notes on ever step, and making sure that I had a tutorial that could be copied for virtually any digital portrait. For someone who is following the steps, it shouldn’t take as long. The steps from beginning to end can be used for any digital portrait you choose to paint. The colors may need to be adjusted depending on the person of course, but the approach is the same.Tutorial Details
- Program: Adobe Photoshop 7
- Difficulty: Intermediate-Advanced
- Estimated Completion Time: 1.5 hours
Step 1
First you want to find a picture you want to work off of. I have always been able to produce a more accurate final product when working off a photograph. This picture was taken from stockvault.net and can be found at this here.
Step 2
Open up a new Photoshop file.
Step 3
For this next step I suggest either using a grid. Make a new layer titled “Outline” and draw the shape of the face and the main features with color # A23B03, using a hard edged brush and with pen pressure on (if using a pen tablet). In the preview image I have not shown the grid so that the outline can be more clearly seen.
Step 4
Now is the time to determine the look that you are going for. I really was inspired by the model’s green eyes and so based the picture off of a complementary color scheme, green and red. To accomplish this I started out with a green background. This green was accomplished using the color # 174208, applied with the paint bucket* tool to the background layer.
Step 5
With a brush* set on 400 pixels, splotch the background with black, but leave the majority the same green color as before. Then take the heal brush** and set the mode to multiply, and use it the blend the black out and into the green of the background. This will give a nice blended effect, without the plastic look you get with Gaussian blur.
7 comments on “Create a Painting from a Portrait Photograph”
gr8 tutorials thanxxx
Please uninstall Photoshop and NEVER use it again.
@Dan Bolivar, Delete your browser, eat a happy pill and go climb a tree. Troll.
Thank you for tutorials.
can i make this without using graphic tablet
Can I use Photoshop 6 to make this...if not, why??
nice tut thanks for sharing