Imitation Landscape Sketch or Hey! I'm a Pretend Artist!

Here's how I turned this:

Policka, Czech Republic 2007

into this:

1. Duplicate Background (as usual)

2. Remove Colour
Image>Adjustments>Gradient Map>Black and White

3. Duplicate Layer

4. Invert Image
Image>Adjustments>Invert

5. Select Blend Mode: Colour Dodge (screen will turn white)

6. Filter>Other>Minimum>1 pixel

Note: Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur>12 pixels (6-12 pixels work best) is done instead of the above step if you're "sketching" a portrait.

7. Merge layers to a new layer by:

• (Alt+Shft+Ctrl+E) which is the shortcut, or
• Layers>Merge to a new layer while depressing Alt key

To Add Colour:

8. Duplicate background layer

9. Move background layer above all others

10. Select Blend Mode: Colour, 50%

I love the dark outlines

Instant Watercolour Painting

Here's how to turn this:

At the Smithsonian Flight Museum, Washington, DC

into this:

Little Butch

Open the photo (will be background).

Duplicate the photo (i.e. the background layer) 3 times.

On the first layer (from the bottom):

Filter>Artistic>Cutout, 4, 4, 2
Blend Mode: Luminosity

layer 1

On layer 2:

Filter>Artistic>Dry Brush, 10, 10, 3
Blend Mode: Screen

layer 2 (including layer 1)

just for fun here's what layer 2 looks like by itself

On layer 3:

Filter>Noise>Median>12 pixels
Blend Mode: Soft Light

Note: make all the layers visible to achieve the end result




Instant Watercolour Painting

I was having so much fun. Here's another one I did.


Beautiful BC Mountains

Just one more:


view from the tower in Policka

Policka, Czech Republic

I noticed the clouds disappeared so I may need to tweak some settings.

Clouds are back (I used cutout filter 8,4,2 instead of 4,4,2)