Tutorial Tuesday - Poster/Painting Effect

I thought that this week I would do a fun Photoshop Elements tutorial on how to turn an ordinary photo into a work of art! I'm talking SIMPLE people. Really.

1. Open a photo in Photoshop (or Elements). This technique works best when it's not a photo of a person, but hey - no one's stoppin' you from trying! I'm using PSE 8 for this tutorial, but it works pretty much the same in most other versions as well.

2. You will need to make a duplicate of your background image, so we won't be bothering the original. Originals hate being bothered. You can do this by clicking "Ctrl+J". You should notice that you now have a new layer above your background layer in your layers palette to the lower right of your screen.

3. We are going to give our photo that funky painting look by adding a filter to the new layer we just created. Click on Filter>Artistic>Poster Edges. You can also find this in your filters palette to the right, but instead of flipping through the little icons, I find using the filter menu at the top is just as easy.

4.Okee dokee.. this little screen will pop up. I won't explain all the mumbo jumbo, just trust me and enter '5' for all of the values. Why? 'Cause it works for me, and I'm in charge here! Click OK when you've done that (again, because I said so).

5. You'll need to create another duplicate of the BACKGROUND later. Click once on the background layer on your layers palette, then click "ctrl+J" to make another copy of the background layer. Now, click once on the new layer you just created and drag it above the layer we just worked on so it's at the top, like below. You should have 3 layers now, the original background layer, the layer we did the poster edges on, and a copy of the original background layer on the top.

6. Click on "Filter>Adjustments>Posterize". Why do you want to know why? Because I SAID SO! Sheesh.

7. When this screen pops up, enter (what else?) 5 for the value, then click OK.

8. Last but not least, we need to change the blending mode from "Normal" to "Overlay" by clicking on the little drop down menu above your layers palette and selecting "Overlay" from the menu. Then, decrease your Opacity of that layer to about 50% using the little slider. Your layers palette should look something like this one below:

Fun, am I right?? Now, print this and hang it in  your bathroom. Even if you're a guy. Real men hang pink flowers in their bathrooms.