The Poor Man's Painting: How To

[Camilla and Darwin]

I have recently wanted paintings done of Darwin to hang up in my house. I was thinking 4 12"12" canvas prints that I could hang in a square in my bathroom. Unfortunately, I was looking at over 200 dollars for a custom painting. I suppose that makes sense, when I consider how much time would be put into them. That is really not reasonable for me to spend on artwork though!

Inspired by someone here on DK, I decided to try and make my own. I can't remember who it was, but someone turned a photo into a painting using Photoshop, and it looked great. It took me a while to figure out how to do it... and the results are pretty cute. I thought I would do a little tutorial in case anyone else wants to try it. Warning, this post is photo heavy. Layers can be confusing so I tried to be very thorough. :-)

1: Open your image in Photoshop.

2: Select the lasso tool, and draw around your subject.

3: After your subject is selected, Go to Layer - New - Layer

4: You've just created a new layer. Now click Edit - Copy merged, then Edit - Paste. This should paste your subject onto the new layer you have created.

5: now, right click on the layer titled "background", and hit "duplicate layer" That will give you this:

6: Now for the fun part! With the "Background Copy" layer selected, go to Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur. I like to set mine to a radius of 45.

7: now that your blur is set, I select the the layer that has the subject on it (Darwin is the subject) and use the eraser tool around the edges, to clean it up a little.You can also use the blur tool to soften the edges.

8: If you want to change the color or look of your background, select the background layer, and adjust it to the way you want it. I adjust the hue and saturation, then like to use the smudge tool to create a more painting like look.

after adjusting the color and smudging the background:

9: Almost Done, I promise! Now you can merge your layers.

10: now that your layers are all merged into one, go to Filter, Filter Gallery. In the filter gallery, select "Palette knife". You can also mess around with other finishes, if you want. Palette knife works best for the painting look I find. If your image is huge, you can select "fit in view" to see it easier.

Hit okay and your done! I like to go and use the smudge tool afterwards to tweak things here and there. The finished product:

[Camilla and Darwin]

That second one cracks me up. And the third one is awesome, I'm going to try it out!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

http://www.befunky.com/
This is a website where you can play with a photo to get different painting styles. It is fun and Karen, there is nothing for you to do but down load the photo and click on buttons. These are nothing to what you did with Darwin, but they were fun to do for my page!

[Camilla and Darwin]

oh, that is cute! He looks so demure in this photo. :-)

[Leslie and Halas]

OK. I tried it. I used Dry Brush instead of Pallette Knife.

[Ronna, Murphy & Wilson]

This is awesome! I can't wait to try it!

[Carol and Banjo]

Thanks Camilla! I've just downloaded GimpShop and already having fun with it! Now my DH is really going to say I spend WAY too much time on this computer!!!

[Camilla and Darwin]

That is really cute! If you do want to do one more like mine, GimpShop is a really good one. It's basically exactly like Photoshop, and it's what I mainly use. It's free too!

[Carol and Banjo]

I have Corel Paint Shop and tried in vain to follow your instructions....I'm sure it can be done with Paint Shop but my frustration got the better of me. I ended up "cheating" and using the shortcut artist effect and came up with this. I'll keep trying your method as I would love to come up with something "frameable"!

[Doris, Knox & Flash]

Thank you for these instructions!!! I am going to try it when I get a chance! (Kinda hoping my daughter or son will step up and do it! ) I just love the way Darwin looks!

[Rose]

Awesome! Love it!