make photo look like a drawn comic?

S
Posted By
stevenmon
May 4, 2004
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1103
Replies
13
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Closed
Does anyone have any ideas on how to make a photo look like a comic strip panel? Basically I’ve cut myself out of a photo and I want to turn it into something that looks like a drawn comic figure. I’ve played around with various filters including the color half-tone filter, but I haven’t been able to achieve a good result. TIA!
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Barbara_Brundage
May 4, 2004
You can’t totally do this tutorial in PE, but if you ignore the channels stuff at the beginning you should be able to adapt the rest of it:

<http://www.macmerc.com/articles/Graphics_Tips/209>
K
Karen
May 4, 2004
A free photo program from Kodak, I believe it is called EasyShare, has a fun effects section and one of the effects is Cartoon. It is really neat and I love the effect. That is the only thing I use that program for! Check it out!
Karen

wrote in message
You can’t totally do this tutorial in PE, but if you ignore the channels
stuff at the beginning you should be able to adapt the rest of it:
<http://www.macmerc.com/articles/Graphics_Tips/209>
PA
Patti_Anderson
May 4, 2004
I tried the macmerc.com tutorial and here’s my first attempt: <http://www.pbase.com/image/28623124>

Note: I do have Lynch’s Hidden Power tools installed, so I was able to do the Quick Mask steps. It does a pretty decent job even without those steps. I also added one step to get the grainy look by using Filter>Noise>Add Noise.

Learned some new uses for Threshold and Diffuse! Very cool. You can make some very nice negative type B/W sketches using this method.

Patti
R
RickMacMerc
May 4, 2004
Rick from MacMerc.com here. Hey, Patti, nice work. One suggestion would be to lighten the Tone layer if possible. That will brighten it up a bit. I give instructions for that in the Optional Stuff at the end of the tutorial…although they are for Photoshop proper and not Elements. Again, nice work.
DS
Dick_Smith
May 4, 2004
Patti, I know that Rick has responded to you and I think you’ve done a good job as well. As long as Rick is reading these posts, I wonder if either you or he has used the Ling add-on called Lawtoon, which performs a smimilar transformation?

If so what was your reaction to it?

Dick
R
RickMacMerc
May 4, 2004
I haven’t seen any results from the Lawtoon plug-in so I really can’t comment.
TF
Terri_Foster
May 4, 2004
Rick,

I don’t know how comic you want your image but can help kind of with what the Lawtoon action looks like. Go to challenge #65 page 7. Look at my (Terri Foster) 3rd entry. I looked at the text log from the Lawtoon action and adjusted it to my needs. The Lawtoon is a little darker with slightly more blur… oh and the edges seem to have more contrast than mine turned out. At any rate, if you want something like the #3 I can’t remember the settings but can give you the filter order. I used diffuse glow (by the way the paint chip color was set white foreground black background), paint daubs, accented edges, then smart blur. I know this wasn’t a ton of help but maybe it will give you a starting place. If you want dark edging, you might could try using the poster edges filter in addition to the filters I mentioned.

Terri
PA
Patti_Anderson
May 5, 2004
I tried the Lawtoon from the Snap Actions before and was not impressed. I think it just doesn’t do what I thought it was supposed to do??? 🙂 I posted a sample of it along with a new lighter version of the first one.

<http://www.pbase.com/omd01639/comicbook>

I’m still not sure I got the effect of the displacement map/halftone stripes the way it was intended, but I’ll try it again later. I need to find some other photos to try.

BTW…I’m just doing this for fun and to learn. Although it would be fun to use photos-to-comics on cards or calendars for gifts. There is always something new to learn with the software!

Patti
R
RickMacMerc
May 5, 2004
Yeah…not impressed with Lawtoon at all. It still looks very much like a photo and quite unlike an illustration.

PS: The lighter version is much nicer. Did you try the Color Halftone layer at all? Maybe it’s not part of Elements.
PA
Patti_Anderson
May 5, 2004
Did you try the Color Halftone layer at all? Maybe it’s not part of Elements

Yes, I did that. You can see the lines in the shadows on the guy’s face. I de-emphasized them though, it seemed too harsh to me. The Halftone/lines and Displacement map can be done in Elements, but the Quick Mask part needs full Photoshop tools. I have them installed as add-ons with Lynch’s Hidden Elements. I don’t think I have quite the hang of it though, but I "think" I understand what the tutorial is trying to accomplish. The idea is to get those halftone lines to add contour to the shadow/dark areas in the picture.

I tried another one on a crop from a scanned photo of my son-in-law. He seemed a willing victim. 🙂 I posted a before and after pic this time. This time I made the black lines thinner (on the Ink 2 layer). His teeth look a little vampire-ish, but I didn’t take time to fix it. You can see the halftone lines very well in this one.

<http://www.pbase.com/image/28656640>

I am hoping that some other users will give this tutorial a try and add their input too. It’s good practice!

Patti
JH
Joe_Henry1000
May 6, 2004
Hi Patti,

I tried the tutorial but as I don’t have the Hidden Elements add-ons I had to stop at the Quick Mask step. Here are my attempts: Image 1 <http://homepage.mac.com/josephhenry/links/cartoonbutt.jpg> and Image 2 <http://homepage.mac.com/josephhenry/links/cartooncar.jpg>.

They’re okay, but the result you got with the guy in the tux/top hat is much closer to a cartoon look than mine, IMO.

Joe
PA
Patti_Anderson
May 6, 2004
That first one is pretty good, Joe, and what cute photo! 🙂

This tutorial is great for learning because the results can vary so much depending on the photo. I learned more about what blending modes can do! Anyway, what will please one person for a cartoon, won’t satisfy another.

I’d like to find a way to get the haltone line effect without using the extra add-on tools, but I can’t think of a way…yet.

Patti
S
stevenmon
May 7, 2004
Thanks, that’s exactly what I was looking for! You’re right, had the skip over that channels step, but the result came out pretty good without it.

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