3 Steps to Turn Photograph into Watercolor Painting

One interesting effect in photoshop is convert a photograph into watercolor painting. In this photoshop tutorial you can turn your own photos into super realistic watercolor painting only in 3 steps, it sounds so easy right?

Final Image Preview

Before we get started, let’s take a look at the original image and the end result.

Step 1

We begin the first step by opening the photo you want to change with photoshop. Duplicate background layer by ight clicking on the layer and select duplicate layer or can be a shortcut Ctrl + J.

Use the Cutout filter on a duplicate layer. On the menu bar select Filter>Artistic>Cutout and filter window will appear. Change the Number of Levels 4, Edge Simplicity to 4, and Edge Fidelity to 2.

Now change the Blending Mode of Layer 1 to Luminosity, we find our pictures changed as follows.

Step 2

Duplicate the background layer again and place the duplicate above Layer 1. Rename this layer to Layer 2. This time we will give a little texture to the picture. In the current state of Layer 2 click Filter>Artistic>Dry Brush and enter the value 10 Brush Size, Brush Detail 10, and Texture 3.

Change the Layer 2 Blending Mode to Screen and we get the following picture.

Step 3

duplicate the background layer again and place it above Layer 2. Rename this layer with Layer 3.

Apply a Median filter to this layer, select Filter>Noise>Median with a radius of 12 pixels.

And as a final step, change the Layer 3s Blending Mode to Soft Light.

Only three steps you can turn your own photos into watercolor painting and don’t forget subscribe to grafisia RSS Feed.

Download psd file