Getting a nice watercolor effect is something everyone has tried at least once. The Photoshop watercolor filter is a poor substitute since it adds too much black to define the edges. In this tutorial I will show you an easy way to achieve this. Read the full post to find out how it’s done.
To get started open a photo you like in Photoshop. It’s usually better to use a photo with vivid colors but just about anything will do. This is what I used.
Step 1.
The first thing you need to do is dupliacte your backgorund layer 3 times. We will be applying a different effect to each. To duplicate a layer, just right click on the background layer in the layers pallete and select dupliace. Once done, rename the layers to something easier to remember to avoid confusion. In this case (since we don’t have too many layers), I just used numbers.
Step 2
OK, so now we have all the layers we need. Go ahead and turn off layers 2 and 3 and apply the artistic/cutout effect from the filters menu with the following settings. Make sure you have selected Layer 1 before applying the effect.
Now need to change the Layer 1 blend mode to Luminosity
This is what the image will look like but don’t worry we’re on the right track.
Step 3
Now turn Layer 2 back on and select it so we can make the required changes.
First apply the artistic/drybrush filter with the follwoing settings
Then change the layer blend mode to screen. Your picture should now look like this.
So far so good, keep going, we’re almost there.
Step 4
Turn on Layer 3, select it and apply the Noise/Median filter. You may want to play around with values once youre done. The value I have chosen is based on my image size. What we want here is to have enough blur to give the impression of seeping colors, but don’t overdo it.
There, now all you need is to change the Layer blend mode to soft light and you’re done.
If you want a little more realisme, select Layer 2 again and use the texturizer filter with the following values.
And you get…
