Photoshop - Watercolour

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This month I was given an assignment to help me discover new techniques in photoshop and illustrator. I decided to take one of my photos and put them through photoshop to create a watercolour effect. For this project I had to download a specific set of brushes that gave off a painted effect. Before using the brush tool, I had to create two layers of the same image so I could add different filters and effects on the picture before turning it into a painting. Once the filters had been added, I turned it into a mask and added a picture of watercolour paper in order to enhance the idea of this being a painting. Once that was done, I could use the paintbrush tool to bring out my picture from the mask, then I just played around with different brushes and opacity until I was happy with the result.

For this tutorial I learned a lot about the different filters that I can layer onto my photos in photoshop. I went into the smart filters and used the watercolour filter and blur effects, once I chose what effect I wanted to see on my photo, I could adjust the hardness and opacity of each filter which was really useful as it allowed me to enhance this idea of a watercolour painting. I also added the vines and made them less opaque to make it seem as if they were drawn on. I thought adding the initials at the bottom of the ‘painting’ would be a fun touch to this project, further pushing this idea of a hand drawn portrait. In the tutorial I used, it was recommended that I download a set of brushes and I think it was really beneficial as the brushes that come with this program don’t really give a watercolour effect to photos whereas this set has brushes that give a natural look to their strokes.

Overall, I think this was a successful first attempt in adding a watercolour effect to my photos. I hope to gain more experience with this over time and find different styles of painting/drawing I can manipulate photos into through photoshop.

Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX52gPIipYM

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