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Help turn photo into painting


RUsum1

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I want to add a piece of art to my wall but most of the stuff I see in stores aren't exactly what I want. There have been some that I like but they are pictures instead of artwork. I want something that looks like a painting.

 

I recently found out that it's pretty easy to turn a photo into something that looks like art so I have been trying that with this photo I Googled. (attached)

 

It is pretty much exactly what I want except for a couple of small changes.

 

1) I would like the overall colors to be a little more vibrant. This picture seems just a tad muted. I used the "auto level" feature which helped get more of what I wanted.

 

2) I would like the rooftops of each building to be Navy Nautical/Royal Blue (my sheets arrived in the mail and they aren't really "navy" at all) in order to go with my bedroom color scheme better. I think that minor adjustment to match my decor would really be a small detail that could make a big difference. I tried doing this on my own as well using that magic wand tool to select the roof and adjusting the Hue/Saturation but for some reason I can never get it quite right so maybe I am doing a bad method. I wish there was a straight line selector tool where I could just select the corners one by one to select the entire roof with straight edges but I don't know where to find that.

 

3) I think the small portion of sand in the bottom right of the picture would look better if it were more of a yellowish-brown just to add a little extra color to the picture.

 

4) Of least importance, I might add one or two more white clouds in the sky just to break up the solid color sky a little.

 

5) Hopefully after making the adjustments, making the picture larger won't make it look aweful. Since I want to be able to print this onto either an 18x24 canvas or 16x20

 

 

These seem like they would be easy fixes for someone who knows what they are doing. I've tried a few methods myself but they never turn out right. I've done the change to oil painting feature with a layer of a pencil sketch on top to maintain a little bit of detail that the oil painting destroys. The closes to my vision I have been able to get is by doing an ink sketch (also attached) but I want a brush painting, not something that looks like a colored in drawing.

 

If anyone can get something that looks close to this but with a brush stroke look instead of the ink lines, and a couple extra clouds that would really help me out a lot. I plan on using the picture and submitting it to a canvas printing company to make this a 24x18 picture.

 

Thanks for any tips and help.

post-137908-0-62721000-1412724860_thumb.

post-137908-0-88195000-1412724872_thumb.

Edited by RUsum1
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I tried to follow that second tutorial to see how my photo will turn out but I'm not able to find the metalize plugin. I copied the DLLs to the effects folder of paint and did the steps to "unblock" it but I can't find it.

 

Also, Norton recognizes all of the DLLs as security risks and flags them. Is there a way around that?

 

After adding several plugins, I did notice a new "Dream" artistic option which seems pretty cool. I tried to tinker a round with that a little but not sure if I like it for my final.

post-137908-0-37654300-1413039929_thumb.

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Alright here is what I got after doing some color leveling (I think...) and adjusting the Dream settings. I tried to change to roof colors and the sand color in the bottom right as well. If there are better ways to do these things please let me know.

 

I think overall I like the look, I'm just not too sure about the little bit of blurriness. Here is the artistic Dream look and then the same look with additional Landscape Sharpening done to it (with "2" in the title). The original picture is in first post to compare. Please leave feedback of which you think would look better hanging on a wall and/or what modifications you would do.

post-137908-0-56988800-1413327388_thumb.

post-137908-0-68589500-1413327398_thumb.

Edited by RUsum1
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To go along with the picture above, I have another picture that I think would compliment it well. Kind of an end-of-the-day, spent-the-entire-day surfing conclusion. I think this one will take a little more work though because it has a lot of grey in it. If the color of the sky or the water could change in some way to add a variety of color, that would be awesome. I'm just not even sure where to begin with this one. Hopefully some people can provide me with some ideas.

 

Thank you

post-137908-0-57204300-1413327776_thumb.

Edited by RUsum1
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  1. Open the image
  2. Duplicate the layer.
  3. Top layer: Press F4.
  4.      Change the Blend Mode to Multiply  (enhances colors)
  5.      Change the Opacity to around 135 (reduces severity of enhanced colors).
  6. Merge top layer down (= one layer)
  7. Duplicate the single layer
  8. Top layer: Effects > Artistic > Oil Painting BS:2, C:78
  9. Top Layer: Effects > Blurs > Gaussian Blur @ 3.
  10.    Press F4
  11.    Change Blend Mode to Darken.
  12.    Change Opacity to around 216.
  13. Merge top layer down (= one layer)

 

yhsjjie-2403.png

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Cool, your first request sounds like a fun challenge. I want to see what I can come up with. If I can come up with something, but it has a bunch of steps that could be confusing, would you still want me to share?
 
And about your second picture, I don't think I understand. Do you want that picture to look like a painting too but have improoved colors? or do you only want it to have improoved colors?

Edited by Cc4FuzzyHuggles
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I would like both pictures to look like artwork with improved colors. They are both a little drab on their own I think. I like ERam's tip on color enhancement with the duplicate layer. I'll be sure to use that while experiementing with stuff myself.

 

The other thing I kind of dislike about the second picture is how close in color the sky is with the water. If the clouds could get a more purple tint or something added to them I think it would help. I used ERam's color enhancement along with the Dream setting and it turned into this which looks much better than the original picture.

 

I find myself liking the "Dream" artistic setting (haven't been able to try that tutorial which requires the Metallic plugin since I can't find Metallic setting anywhere). I just wish it didn't have to look as blurry as it does. I am not sure if it would bug me into thinking my vision is out of focus when looking at it on the wall.

 

Regardless of how complicated your steps are, please share. If it's too complicated, maybe you can just email the result to me if I really like it.

 

Thanks for the interest and keep the suggestions coming.

post-137908-0-29690000-1413599374_thumb.

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Hi RUsum1 - you can find the Metalize plugin under Effects - Color - which is in a different place from the PDN older version.  Of course you must download the Metalize plugin if you have not done so yet from here

 

I had a little fun with your picture ..........

 

 

post-46880-0-08785100-1413642431_thumb.p

30b8T8B.gif

How I made Jennifer & Halle in Paint.net

My Gallery | My Deviant Art

"Rescuing one animal may not change the world, but for that animal their world is changed forever!" anon.

 
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Alright, I have a sample image done, but before I get to that, I wanted to mention that your image is pretty small, so I am concerned on if it will turn out right if you blow it up. Have you seen this thread? It might interest you : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/17049-dpi-and-you-understanding-resolution-for-print-and-web/
It would be much better if you had a larger version of the image. Aside from that, there's no harm in having fun with the image or learning from it.

Here is the image sample I did. I'm not sure if the coloring is what you are looking for, but it can be tweaked. And the textures added to the image are all optional. I'm making steps for how to get what I got, but before I do more with them, I want to make sure you're interested in this kind of turn out, and some feedback might effect some of the steps too. I will warn you, if you like this there are quite a few steps, but a good thing to that is you might learn quite a bit.

PhotoIntoPainted_WavesAndPier_zps8a8a2f1


By the way, you said you might want added clouds in the picture, well, there is a nice tutorial for clouds found here : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/18950-almost-realistic-fluffy-clouds/

For your second picture, I still have to play more with that one. ;)

Edited by Cc4FuzzyHuggles
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Hi RUsum1 - you can find the Metalize plugin under Effects - Color - which is in a different place from the PDN older version.  Of course you must download the Metalize plugin if you have not done so yet from here

 

I had a little fun with your picture ..........

 

I don't have "color" in my effects menu. I'll see if I can somehow get it working.

 

 

Alright, I have a sample image done, but before I get to that, I wanted to mention that your image is pretty small, so I am concerned on if it will turn out right if you blow it up. Have you seen this thread? It might interest you : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/17049-dpi-and-you-understanding-resolution-for-print-and-web/

It would be much better if you had a larger version of the image. Aside from that, there's no harm in having fun with the image or learning from it.

Here is the image sample I did. I'm not sure if the coloring is what you are looking for, but it can be tweaked. And the textures added to the image are all optional. I'm making steps for how to get what I got, but before I do more with them, I want to make sure you're interested in this kind of turn out, and some feedback might effect some of the steps too. I will warn you, if you like this there are quite a few steps, but a good thing to that is you might learn quite a bit.

By the way, you said you might want added clouds in the picture, well, there is a nice tutorial for clouds found here : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/18950-almost-realistic-fluffy-clouds/

For your second picture, I still have to play more with that one. ;)

 

 

Would it be better to resize it larger before working on it? That way the changes made might look better since they're done at the higher resolution?

 

I don't have access to a larger picture. I randomly found that image on Google by typing "Folly Beach Pier" or something and looking at the images. Not sure if there even is a larger version available.

 

That is pretty good. Maybe a little too much added texture causing the picture to be lighter than I would like.

 

I'll give that cloud tutorial a try to add to my picture.

 

Edited by RUsum1
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Surely you must have color in your Effects drop down?

actually he may not - I could be wrong but, Color is not a stock PDN menu, it's  introduced by the Plugin Developers. When he installs the plugin, he will have a Color menu.

Go out there and be amazing. Have Fun, TR
TRsSig.png?raw=1
Some Pretty Pictures Some Cool Plugins

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I like RAMurphy's suggestion. ;)
But, since I already said I'd give you steps to my sample image, I will continue on....

I'll have to let you figure out the image sizing stuff though, I already gave you the link to the thread about DPI, which towards the end (section 4) talks about higher image resolutions.
So, for now, the steps used here, and the settings that were used, are based off of what you gave in your first post, and they will result in something similar to the sample image I shared. (There's a step for the image's shading/lightness.)

This is a long tutorial, but luckily you can apply most of this stuff to other things and bigger pictures, just with different settings. For example, the overall image textures can be used on your second requested image. Don't be too scared of the length of this personalized tut, it's only long because I didn't use pictures so I tried to explain more instead, and I tried to give you multiple choices, as well as tips since I don't know your paint.net experience level. :)

Click "Show" to view the steps.

Hidden Content:
The Approach : For this particular picture, I think you're going to want to apply different effects for different parts of the picture.

1) Lets start with the water. Duplicate the original picture and call it the Water Layer.

2) Then run the effect called “Dents” (Menu Bar > Effects > Distort > Dents :DentsEffect: ).
Don't worry about the rest of the image, only focus on how the water looks. When I use dents to add texture to things I normally like to move the roughness slider halfway or higher and then I lower either the Refraction slider, or the Tension slider, or both.
The settings I used this time were :
Scale Default
Refraction 10.19
Roughness 63.81
Tension Default
Quality Default

Or, you can just play with the three sliders till the water looks painty-ish.
 
3) Take the Eraser Tool :EraserTool:, and depending on if you want the clouds and other things dented or not, erase only the wooden structure, or if you don't want other things dented erase every thing except the water. (the original un-dented picture will show through, allowing for the water to have the dented textured appearance while keeping the wooden structure intact.)

Tip, whenever erasing is needed, the more effort you put into it the better, as it might give a nicer looking final result.
You can use any tool as an eraser, for example the line/curve tool :LineTool:, just look at the tool's options and change “Normal :BlendingEnabled:” to “Overwrite :BlendingOverwrite:”, and set your primary color to “Opacity - Alpha 0”. “Alpha - Opacity” is found in the “More” of the colors window.
Also, don't be afraid to zoom in if you want to erase small areas.

Now lets focus on the wooden structure.
To get what I got....

4) Duplicate the original layer again and call the new duplicate the Emboss Layer. Move the Emboss Layer to above your Water Layer so you can see it.

5) Then go to Effects > Stylize > Emboss :EmbossEffect:. Rotate the angle till you have something you like, I ended up setting mine at -43.81.
When experimenting with things, I later noticed that the top of the mini roof being embossed was a problem, so use the Clone Stamp tool  :CloneStampTool: to clone/blend the top and left embossed lines of the mini roof in with the sky.

6) Now go duplicate the original layer once more, move it to above the Emboss Layer, and lower it's opacity to around 165. Then merge the layer down into the Emboss Layer.

7) You might have noticed that the emboss effect made the sky quite a bit darker. So erase the sky, including some of the sky areas that are in between the wooden parts of the structure. The more sky you erase the better, but you don't need to stress over every little dot either.

8) Next, move the Water Layer above the Emboss Layer and lower the Water Layer's opacity to anywhere from 155 through 195. I did 190.

9) When you moved the Water Layer up, or when you lowered it's opacity, you might have noticed that the water is a little out of position. That's because the effect that was used on the water (dents) uses a type of pixel displacement. To position the water better just use the “Move Selected Pixels tool :MoveTool: ”, click on your picture once, and then lower the water by pressing the arrow keys on your keyboard one time or a couple of times.
 
10) Optional, use the Furblur plugin to texture the wooden structure. Warning, this will blur the image, but it also gives a little more of a painted look in my opinion, and you can adjust the intesity by changing the layer's opacity.
Duplicate your original image and call it Furblur Layer. Move the layer up till you can see it.
Then go to Effects > Blurs > Furblur
Main Length 8
Length variation 0.06
Main Angle -90.00
Angle variation 00.00
Curl Curvature 0.03
Curl variation 0.03
Go back up and set the Repetitions to 100.00. (repetitions takes long so I try to do it last.)
The rest default.
“Keep furblur only” Unchecked.
Click “Ok”

Lower the layer's opacity to what you like, or to something around 85 to 160. The goal is to have the furblur give some texture but not be over powering.

11) Erase unwanted furs. For example, with my sample image, I didn't want furs on the roofs or hanging off of them. I didn't want furs that stuck out oddly either. And I also didn't want intense furs for the water, since the fur texture was mainly done for the wooden structure. So I erased every thing I didn't want, and to fade the furs that overlaid the water, I used the eraser with my primary color set to being half opaque (alpha - opacity around 148).

Lets try to do some image coloring.
This part is a bit tricky because it's difficult to know the colors you are looking for. And getting colors, shades, and brightness to look right normally takes a lot of back and forth of fiddling with multiple adjustments, which means a lot of little steps. So, I'm sorry to say, but I do not have color settings or any real steps for you. But, I do at least have suggestions.
(If you do need extra help for the coloring though, give me a picture of the blue you want (there's lots of colors on the internet) and I can try to match it, and then I can try to produce some steps for you.)

12) Copy Merge your image (Menu Bar > Edit > Copy Merged. (ctrl+shift+c))
Add a new layer and paste (ctrl+v) onto it, Or simply paste into new layer (Menu Bar > Edit > Paste Into New Layer. (ctrl+shift+v)).
Call the layer Copy Merged, and make sure it's above your other layers.

13) To re-color the roofs I suggest you separate them out from the rest of the image. Duplicate the Copy Merged layer and call it roofs. Turn off all of the other layers. Then see these tutorials for cutting out objects : A basic cutting out tutorialA brief collection of different ways to cut out.

14) Once your roofs are cut out, duplicate the roofs layer, so you have a backup in case of mistakes, and turn the back up layer off, and turn the Copy Merged layer back on.

15) Then try recoloring the roofs with Hue/saturation, Levels :LevelsEffect:, and Brightness/Contrast :BrightnessContrast: , all of which are found in Menu Bar > Adjustments.
I used Hue/Saturation to get the roofs blue.
I used brightness/contrast to darken the roofs but still maintain detail.
And I used levels to take out colors, for example the roofs kept having too much traces of green, so I used levels to lessen the green.
With going back n forth between those three adjustments I was able to get a decent blue, however, the one edge on the bigger roof I couldn't get blue without making the rest of the roof a bad color. So here is another way to recolor things...
For the uncooperative roof edge, I made a new layer and painted over the edge with my desired blue color. I then gaussian blurred the paint to give it faded edges. Next I set the layer's blending mode to Overlay. Some of the gaussianed blue paint spilled over into the sky though, so I clicked the roofs layer, got the magic wand tool :MagicWandTool:, clicked on the outside of the roofs to make a selection, then I clicked back on the gaussianed paint layer, and hit delete on my keyboard.

Tip, cutting out objects and putting them on their own layer and recoloring them with various adjustments is one way to recolor things, but another way to recolor things is to use layer blending modes. Often Multiply and Overlay are the most used layer blending modes for recoloring.

16) After you have your blue roofs turn them off (invisible) and duplicate your Copy Merged layer.
For coloring the rest of the image there are three possible ways to go about coloring it.

* You can saturate all of the image using hue/saturation.

* Or you can focus on one area at a time, for example, duplicate the Copy Merged Layer, saturate the sky, and erase everything but the sky. Duplicate the Copy Merged layer again, change the sand's color, and erase everything but the sand. And do the same for the water and wooden structure.
I personally like the original color of the people, and since the Copy Merged layer should still be in the original colors, and should be under the colored layers, erasing the people in the colored layers will let the original colored people show through.

* Or, you can recolor things using the layer blending modes method. I briefly explained above with the blue roof, but I'll explain more here.
Add a layer above your other layers and lower it's opacity so you can see what you are coloring. Consider which area you want to re-color first, then choose a color to color with. The color doesn't have to be perfect though, you can later make any color you want with adjustments from the Adjustments tab after you are done doing the initial coloring of the area. Once you have your color start coloring your area with the paintbrush :PaintBrushTool: or line/curve tool :LineTool:, and remember to check the tool's options to make sure “Overwrite :BlendingOverwrite:” is set to “normal :BlendingEnabled:”. Then open layer properties and go through the blending modes till you find one that might be close to what you want. Finally, adjust the color to your liking and play with your layer's opacity.
Repeat for each area of the picture that you want to recolor. Sky, clouds, wood, sand, water, people, etc.

17) Shading and Sharpness.
If you are already happy with how your image's lighting is you may not need to mess with it's shading and sharpness.
But, if you do want to change the shading of the picture, such as make it lighter, darker, give it more contrast, or make it less blurry, then try one of or all of these things...

* Add a new layer, color the layer a medium gray, set the layer's blending mode to “Color Burn”, then go to Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and adjust the shade of the gray to your liking.

* If you have multiple colored layers copy merge your color layers (expect the blue roofs, make them invisible before you copy merge) and paste the newly merged colored version of your image on it's own layer, call it Shading/Sharpness Layer.
Then use either Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast :BrightnessContrast:, or Effects > Photo > Sharpen :SharpenEffect:, or both. When you like what you see turn the blue roofs layer back on and make sure it is above the Shading/Sharpness Layer.
If you only have one colored layer and your roofs layer then just apply the brightness/contrast or the sharpen effect to your colored layer. (optional, duplicate the colored layer first if possible mistakes worry you.)

Overall Image Textures.
18) Moving on, add a new layer. This layer will be used to give a texture to the overall image. Lower the layer's opacity to around 170 through 190 so you can see where colors and patterns will lay over the image.
18 A ) To make a sort of cool texture, have your primary and secondary colors set to black and white and then render some clouds (Menu Bar > Effects > Render > Clouds).
Cloud Settings :
Since your picture is on the smaller side, I suggest scaling the clouds down just a little. I scaled mine to 165.
Adjusting the roughness is optional, I'm fine with it's default setting.
Also optional, reseed the clouds till you have a pattern you like.
18 B ) Then apply dents to the clouds (Menu Bar > Effects > Distort > Dents).
Because both clouds and dents are very random, using exact settings doesn't always matter for this texture. It's really all about playing with the sliders till things look cool. But, similar to the dent settings used on the water, I like to put the roughness slider half way or higher, and then lower the refraction slider and/or the tension slider.
Here are the settings I used this time :
Scale the dents to a big size or to your liking, I did 150.00.
Refraction 26.76
Roughness 68.09.
Tension 5.82.
Quality Default.
18 C) Open the cloud layer's properties and set it's blending mode to Overlay.
18 D) Now tweak the clouds with the adjustment brightness/contrast, use a half opaque eraser to erase places that are too strong, and play with the cloud layer's opacity until you like what you see.
I personally lowered my clouds' contrast to -20, faintly erased the clouds that covered the sky, and set the layer's opacity to 167.

19) Optional, lets make another texture, a line texture using the Jitter plugin. (Warning, some settings cause this plugin to crash, be sure you have saved your progress as a .pdn file.)
19 A) Add a new layer.
19 B ) Set your primary and secondary colors to black and white.
19 D) Run the clouds effect (scale to 185), click ok.
19 E) Run the jitter plugin. Jitter Settings :
Maximum distance 280,
Angle 90,
Edge Behavior Reflect,
The rest default. (if things crash lower the maximum distance).
19 F) Then lower the layer's opacity to about 27 and set it's blending mode to Overlay.
19 G) Use the eraser tool with Alpha – Opacity set to about 85 and erase the jitters that cover the sky to make them more faint.
19 H) Repeat the above, but change the angle of the jitters. Here are the steps repeated :
Add a new layer.
Set your primary and secondary colors back to black and white.
Run the cloud effect again, click ok.
Run the jitter plugin again.
Maximum distance 280
Reset the angle to be 0.00
Edge Behavior Reflect
The rest default.
Lower the layer's opacity to about 27 and set it's blending mode to Overlay.
Use the eraser tool with Alpha – Opacity set to about 85 and erase the jitters that cover the sky to make them more faint.
 
Congratulations! It's done!

Here are some slightly different results plus my first sample image :

A little more shaded compared to the first sample, boosted the color a little, sharpened 1, and a softer texture.
PhotoIntoPainted_WavesAndPier3_zps7698d6

A version with no furblur, shaded a very small amount compared to the first sample, slightly stronger texture for a water color painted effect.
PhotoIntoPainted_WavesAndPierNoFurBlur_z

The first sample that I shared in my previous post.
It is blurry, but at the same time, in my opinion, it really doesn't look like a photograph any more.
PhotoIntoPainted_WavesAndPier_zps8a8a2f1

 

 

If you have questions about any of the steps or need some more detail about a step feel free to ask. :)
( If anyone else takes interst in this tutorial, just give a request and maybe I will remake it as a real tutorial with pictures for the steps.)

Edited by Cc4FuzzyHuggles
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