How do you turn a photo into a comic? With Paint Shop Pro it’s very easy and only takes a few steps, all explained in this tutorial.
Let’s examine the photograph we want to process: this technique will give the best result with images where the foreground subject is well focused. However, it is also interesting to use it for processing architectural photographs or landscapes given the effect, similar to drawing, that it creates. Starting from a photograph, the “cartoon” we obtain will, of course, be very realistic.
This processing technique consists of two phases: as normally happens for making comics, from the photograph we will first derive a “drawn” image from the photograph and then proceed to extract an appropriate coloring. Let’s start by duplicating the “background” layer twice, using the dedicated button on the layers palette or the duplicate command from the layers menu.
With the upper layer selected, “click” twice on the icon to the left of the name in the layers palette: the dialog window for the layer properties opens.
Set the color blending mode to “dodge” and confirm by pressing the OK button at the bottom of the window. Similarly, in the properties of the underlying layer, we set its name to “drawing”.
By selecting the Adjust menu and the Invert Image command, we invert the colors of the image contained in the upper layer. The image suddenly disappears from the monitor! In reality, this is a property of the “dodge” color blending mode when used to overlay an image with its negative: we will take advantage of this to obtain a simplified version of the photograph.
From the Adjust menu, select Blur and then Gaussian Blur. In the filter dialog window, set the radius value to 2.00. The preview window shows us the effect applied to the layer with inverted colors (and the effect is certainly not the best). With the preview button (depicting an eye), however, we can see how a ‘drawn’ effect is already recognizable on the image.
After confirming the filter by pressing the “OK” button, merge the upper layer with the one immediately below (which we called “drawing”) by right-clicking its icon on the layers palette and selecting Merge Down. Then select Adjust/Brightness and Contrast/Threshold and see how the drawing now appears in black on white, as if traced by a pencil.
Adjust the threshold to reveal the drawing’s stroke, reducing the presence of ‘noise’. Optimal values vary between 230 and 250 depending on the photograph and the desired result. You can also reduce noise by applying the Smooth and Preserve Edges filter before working on the original photograph. Sometimes the best solution, however, is a few minutes of patience and a brush.
Now let’s define the coloring of our “cartoon”: temporarily hide the “drawing” layer and create a new duplicate of the “background” layer, to which we apply the filter Adjust/Add and Remove Noise/Smooth and Preserve Edges at maximum strength, in order to eliminate some of the photograph’s detail. From the properties of this layer, change its name to “color 1”.
Duplicate again the layer we just renamed to “color 1” and rename the copy to “color 2”. Apply an additional filter by selecting Adjust/Add and Remove Noise/Median Filter… and specifying an intermediate value (in the example, 13) for “filter opening”. The value applied depends on the photo’s size and the amount of detail to be softened.
Duplicate the “color 2” layer one last time, rename it to “light” and set its blending mode to luminance (existing). Then select the filter Effects/Artistic Effects/Posterize which, adjusted between 3 and 7 levels, will give us flat areas simulating color comic printing. Check the result by pressing the “preview” button and finally confirm by pressing “OK”.
Make the “drawing” layer visible again, which we hid at step 8, and set its blending mode to Multiply. See how the drawing we obtained in the first part of the tutorial overlaps with the coloring obtained so far. At this point, we can further refine the drawing with a white brush by removing any imperfections.
By adjusting the sliders on the channels palette, modify the opacity of the “light”, “color 1”, and “color 2” layers to blend them in order to achieve the final effect we find most pleasing: varying the opacity of “light” will give shading to the coloring, while varying the opacity or the blending mode of the underlying layers, we can reveal details of the original image or apply special effects.
A further processing option is to create a “pop art” effect: via the command Layers/Merge/Merge Down, merge all layers below the “drawing” layer. Then apply Effects/Artistic Effects/Halftone setting the cell size – in our example – to 3 pixels, optionally applying the use as overlay option to blend it with the background.
If desired, we can finally add a speech balloon to the image, using the vector drawing tools provided by Paint Shop Pro: on a new vector layer with the preset shape tool (shortcut key P), choose a speech balloon that satisfies us from the options bar and draw it on the image after selecting white fill and black stroke.
Using an appropriate font, we can then insert inside the speech balloon a greeting, a witty phrase, or whatever else we want our “characters” to say. When we are fully satisfied with the result, we can merge all the image layers by selecting Layers/Merge/Merge All (flatten) and then save the final image.
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