Photo Effects,

How To Create a Realistic Painted Effect in Photoshop

There’s some talented artists out there who can hand paint stunning hyper-realistic art, but those kinds of skills are something us mere mortals can only dream of. Thankfully with the help of Photoshop it’s possible to create cool effects to mimic the style of painted images. In today’s tutorial I show you a few steps that will transform a photograph into a digitally painted piece of art with detailed brush strokes and blotchy colours.


The effect we’ll be creating in this tutorial transforms a photograph with fine brush strokes to produce a realistic painted appearance. This technique is great for simulating illustrated artwork for retro movie posters or just to give your images a cool stylized look.

Open up your chosen image in Photoshop. I’m using a portrait photo I picked out from Shutterstock. Add a Curves adjustment layer and darken the blacks and brighten the whites to subtly increase the contrast.

Use the shortcut CMD+J to duplicate the background layer twice, then with the uppermost layer selected add a High Pass effect from the Filters menu.

Adjust the High Pass filter radius slider until the details of the photo begin to emerge from the grey background. A low amount of around 1-3px is all that’s required to avoid any haloing.

Change the blending mode of this High Pass layer to Linear Light to drastically sharpen the photograph. These sharp areas will help create detailed brush strokes, especially on the hairs.

Merge the High Pass layer with the background duplicate below it to make this effect permanent, then head to Filter > Stylize > Diffuse.

Change the Diffuse mode to Anisotropic. This is the key ingredient to give the image that cool brushed appearance.

If you look closely at your artwork, you may notice some ugly seaming where the diffusing repeats. I’ve come up with a little technique to fix this…

Go to Image > Image Rotation > 90° CW, then use the shortcut CMD+F to repeat the addition of a Diffuse filter.

Rotate the image by 90° again, then apply another Diffuse filter. Repeat this step for a third time then rotate the image for a final time to place it the right way up.

The Diffuse filter adds a cool brushed effect but it has blurred the image slightly. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen to bring out some of the details. Use an amount of around 100% but a low Radius to avoid over processing the image.

This result looks pretty good as it is. The texturing from the Diffuse filter adds lots of swirly details on the skin which gives the image a traditionally painted effect. However, there’s one little step that further manipulates the image and results in more of a digitally painted look. Select Surface Blur from the Filter > Blur menu and adjust the values to around 50px Radius and 15 Threshold. Fine tune these values so only the large flat areas are affected.

The result is cool effect that mimics digital paintings. The smudged blending of colours and the appearance of fine brush strokes really help achieve a realistic painted look.

The effect really comes the life the closer you get. From afar the fine details can blend to look like a normal photograph, but up close you see what looks like hundreds of individual brush strokes.

Photoshop Tutorials

Software: Photoshop Cs6

Difficulty: Intermediate

Completion Time: 30 min.

Just like we have  “The Girl Who Played With Fire” – a bestselling novel by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson, today we are going to recreate the fire burning effect with a male figure.  You don’t have to use a human image for this, it can even be used on alphabets or basically anything that depicts a sense of style and mystery! Enjoy=)

Image Used For This Tutorial:

STEP 1:

First, we need our fire. Find several different fire images that are on black backgrounds – it’s better to have options. Set all your fire images layer modes to “Screen” to remove the black background.

How and where you place your fire is 100% up to you. I suggest starting with the edges of the person or object. I chose a stock image of fire that looks like it’s on the edge of something, and angled it onto the inner arm.

Then, I added a layer mask to the fire image and masked out parts of the fire that’s not on the inner arm.

I repeated this step, using the same fire over and over again, but I made sure to flip it horizontally sometimes, and use different sections of the fire.

Next, we’ll add our “filler” fire. Find larger pieces of fire images to cover large areas. Again, set all the fire layers to “screen”.I used the same fire image twice. Try to shape and mold many different small fire images as opposed to using one giant one.

I used a layer mask once again to remove the fire on the overlapped arm. This is important so that we do not lose the shape of the arm amongst the fire.

Here’s another example of more fire. Again, find an appropriate fire image, set it to screen, angle it appropriately, and then mask away any piece of fire you don’t want.

Repeat this step until you’re happy with your fire. I also added very tiny images of fire onto his eyes. Here’s what mine looks like:

Once done, group all your fire layers together and name the group “Fire”.

STEP 2:

Usually, most tutorials stop here – but really, we’re only halfway there! Now, let’s make the fire appear more solid so that it looks more realistic. Right now, it’s much too transparent.

• Create a layer below your “Fire” group and name it “fire background”.
• With a semi large round brush set to a medium dark red-orange (#8b2c0d), paint behind the fire.

Focus on the areas that look too transparent. Use a soft round eraser brush to get rid of any hard edges. This is what my layer looks like with and without the fire:

• Create a new layer above your “fire background” layer – set it to “Soft Light”.
• With a large soft round brush set to orange, paint anywhere on your subject where there’s fire.

Now:

• Create a new layer above that layer and again, set it to “Soft Light”.
• With a large round soft brush, paint a giant blob of an orange-red color (#dd4e05) where the fire is and on the surface of your subject.

Try to keep in mind where the light from the fire would be hitting. In my case, I keep all the light and orange colors to the left side of the man’s face. I set layer to 70% opacity.

Next, create one more layer above that layer and again, set it to “Soft Light” and bring it down to around 70% opacity. Paint another large blob of color, this time a lighter red-orange color (#ff894f).

 Now, let’s use the “Blend If” function:

• Double-click on the layer thumb to open up the “Layer Style” panel. At the bottom, you’ll see a “Blend If” section.
• Go to “Underlying Layer” and hold the Alt key to move around the individual toggles.

 How you set them is up to you; experiment and find what looks best. This is what mine looks like:

Group the 4 layers you’ve just created together, and name the group “Fire Fill”.

 STEP 3:

Create some highlights. You can either paint them using a tablet, or use the pen tool like what I’ll do.

• Select the brush tool and set it to 0% Hardness, 100% opacity and around 2-5 px in size. The size will depend on how large your image is. I went with 2px.
• Select your Pen Tool and create single paths outlining the various edges of your subject. You can hide your “Fire” and “Fire Fill” group to help you see better.

Here are what my paths look like:

When you’re satisfied with the amount of highlights you have (I also added some to the face):

• Create a layer above the “Fire” group and set it to “Screen”. Make sure your foreground color is set to the color you want your highlights to be – I chose a light yellow-orange.
• With the Pen Tool selected, right click > Stroke Path. Make sure “Simulate Pen Pressure” is checked. Click “OK”.

• Duplicate the layer and set it to “Overlay”.
• Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and blur it a couple of pixels – just enough to give your highlights a slight subtle glow.

• Group the two layers together and name the group “Highlights”.
• Make sure to turn your “Fire” and “Fire Fill” groups back on.

 STEP 4:

Next, we’re going to add glow to the fire.

• Create a layer above your “Highlights” group.
• Using a large soft round brush, paint a medium red (#d00f00) over your subject.

Now again, use the “Blend If” function. This is my setting:

Set the layer mode to “Screen”.

Create a new layer and repeat the same steps, only this time with an orange color (#dd4900). This is my “Blend If” setting:

 Create one more layer above that layer, set it to “Screen” and cover the whole portion of your image where there is fire.

 For me, it’s the whole right side of the image. I used a very large soft round brush set to a darker red (#9e0000). Make sure it is very soft; blur it out if you need to.

 Set the layer opacity to around 27%.

Group those three layers together and name the group “Glow”.

 Step 5:

• Next, we’re going to increase the intensity of the fire by adding a complementary dark color to the opposite side of the image. Since our fire is red, we’ll add a blue color.

• Create a new layer and set it to “Color”.
• With a large soft round brush, paint blue ( #0e28df) on the opposite side of the fire. In my case, it’s the whole left side of the image.
• Set the layer opacity to around 27%.

Step 6:

To add and even out color, we’re going to create a few adjustment layers.

• The first layer is a Color Balance adjustment layer. Set Cyan to +15, Magenta to -20, and Yellow to -9.

• Next, create a Curves adjustment layer and set the red curve to what you see below. Make sure to switch to the “red” curve.

• Select the layer mask of the curves layer and, using a large soft round black brush, mask out any area that isn’t on the fire.

• Finally, create a second Curves adjustment layer and click in the middle of the RGB curve. Bring it down to darken up the image.

• Using a large black round brush, mask out any area around the fire.

And you’re done! Have fun creating fires and blazes in your own design!

Click images to download the stock

Step 1:Cutting out the image

We will first select the animal that we want to cutout. Use the ‘Quick Selection Tool’ located on the left toolbar in photoshop. I want to keep the rock and wolf and get rid of the rest of the background. When you click the tool a menu will appear at the top above your canvas. Once I have selected everything with the ‘Plus Quick Selection Tool’, as shown in the menu here, I click the refine edge button.

Your image should look something like this when selected.

Once you have clicked ‘Refine Edge…’ a menu will appear. I put contrast to 15 and shift edge to -7. Shitfting the edge to a negative will take away more from the image then selected. Last but not least I set the Output to: ‘New Layer with Layer Mask’. This will create a copy of the image with a mask to hide the unselected part. Click OK when done.

Your image should look like this now.

You can see in the layer menu (see image below) on the right side of your canvas that photoshop has created a layer masked linked to the photo. It’s the black and white layer that is selected in the image. You can use it to bring back parts of the wolf with the white brush and the black brush for getting rid of unwanted areas. It’s a non-destructive way to work on your stock photo. Be sure you have the mask layer selected when working on the wolf and not the actual stock photo. You know when it is selected when you see lines around it as in the image on the left.

Step 2:Refining the cut out of your image

We will add a background so we can further refine the cutout more easily. I added a winter view of the tree tops. When I want my focus to be on the animal I always slightly blur my background to create a fake depth of field. I do this by going to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur. You can see the difference below.

I also cut out more of the wolf his fur with the brush tool on the mask layer so the rough edges disappeared.

Once in the Lens Blur menu I set the radius to 10. The more blurry you want the background the higher you have to set your radius setting.

Your wolf will still look very cut out with straight lines and no fur showing. This is what I do the bring back the fur effect. Select the Dune Grass brush

Now set the brush setting as follows:

It’s very important that your ‘Angle Jitter Control’ is set to Direction. This way however you move your pen it will move in the same direction as your pen does.

I went along the edges of the wolf with the ‘Dune brush’ on the mask layer. Sometimes with white to erase parts and sometimes black to bring back part of the wolf. When done it should look like the images above.

The cut out of your wolf is done! Good going! Now onto the rest.

Step 3:Creating atmosphere with light and color

Beneath the layer menu you see a small toolbar. I use the ‘Adjustment tool’  often.

I will come back to that later. Keep it in mind for now. I start out by creating a layer above my wolf layer. I then right click on the layer. A menu will appear. Select ‘Create clipping mask’ to attach the layer to the layer underneath (in this case the wolf). This means that the layer will only affect the layer it is clipped to.

I fill that layer with 50% gray color. Go to your color picker drag it all the way to the left and set the B in the menu to 50. This will exactly set the gray color to 50%. Or put #808080. Set that layer to ‘overlay’ .
Use the Dodge and Burn tool on the50% gray layer to work in shadows and highlights on your wolf.
Always look where the light is and if the background and foreground match up.

I create another ‘Clipping mask’ above my wolf layer to create more shadow. I use a dark blue color selected from the background. I set my layer to 42% Opacity and to ‘Multiple’. I use pen pressure to vary between the amount of blue I put in each area. I use the Eraser tool to bring back light on the wolf. See the top of his back and legs, again with pen pressure.

I also create a blue shadow layer for my background with the same settings.

Onto my favorite part. I create three overlay layers and start lightly brushing in two kinds of blue on two of the layers and yellow on another to give color and set the mood of the piece. My yellow layer is set to Opacity 43% because I thought it was to intense otherwise. You can do it with any colors you like but I decided to take blue because it was already in the images and yellow because they are nice complementary colors. I then go to the ‘Adjustment tool’ to further intensify the colors. Once you clicked the tool select ‘Selective color’. I always play around with these settings to see what looks good.
I have used the following settings on this image (be sure they are above all your other layers). You can use one adjustment layer to set all the different colors. See the images below for the exact settings I used.

Step 4:Finishing touches

I always create a copy of the animal stock and put it above the original as a clipping mask. I then use the ‘Sharpen tool’ to add extra sharpness to the eyes and nose of the wolf. Be careful you don’t overdo it or else it will become very grainy and pixelated. I also highlighted the wolf’s eyes by making a new layer above the wolf stock and setting it to overlay at 86% opacity and coloring in the eyes with a soft brush using the same yellow as before.

The last two steps are creating a sharpened layer and a softer look for other parts of the image. Make a new layer with copy merged to get a complete copy of all the layers together. I do this by going to Filter > Other > High Pass . Make sure you don’t make the lines too sharp. I usually stay below 2.5. Put the layer to overlay. Mask out any parts that you don’t want sharpened. Copy merge the complete layers again and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur. In the Gaussian blur menu set a slight blur. Set the layer opacity to 52% and Fill to 67%. Create a mask layer for any areas you want to keep sharp. Usually these are parts of the face and areas of fur.

The finished piece. This is how I do pretty much all of my animal stock.

Feel free to experiment and have fun!