Digital Scrapbook Ingredients

Digital Scrapbooking Designs

  • Home
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Freebies
Tips and tricks: Watercolor

Tips and tricks: Watercolor

July 18, 2016

Hi there! CT Member Kacy here with a tutorial on turning a photo into a watercolor painting.  In this layout, I’m using the painting as the background for a scrapbook page.

First, open the photo you want to work with and use the Color Picker tool to select a prominent background color in the photo you are working with as the foreground color.  The background color in the Color Picker should be white.  I’ve selected the blue of the sky in the background of this photo as the foreground color.

watercolor_1

Next, create a new document in Photoshop that is 3600 X 3600 pixels (use File, New from the top menu).  Use the Gradient tool to fill the background layer with a radial gradient – re-do the gradient as many times as you like until it looks “right”.

watercolor_2

watercolor_3

Next, add the photo you want to work with into a new layer in the 3600 x 3600 pixel document. Resize the photo to your liking – my document now looks like this:

watercolor_4

Using the Magic Wand tool, and making sure you are on your photo layer, you will select the background areas of the photo and delete them.  The eraser tool and the Undo command are also your friends here!

watercolor_5

From the top menu, select Filter, and Filter Gallery… A new window will pop up – this allows you to play with the various default filters available in Photoshop and preview the changes before you apply them.  For the buildings, I used the Palette Knife filter with a stroke size of 13, a stroke detail of 1, and a softness of 0.  Click OK to apply your filter.

watercolor_6

I then applied another filter from the Filter Gallery to adjust the photo some more – this time I used the dry brush filter with the following settings:

watercolor_8

The photo was still looking rather dark, so I made a copy of the photo layer, set the blending mode to Screen, and tinkered with the fill percentage until the photo looked the way I wanted it to.

watercolor_9a

My layout now looks like this:

 

watercolor_9b

Next, I added a new layer, picked a color from the default swatches, painted randomly on top of the buildings, and then set the layer blending mode to Overlay – here is the before and after for three different painted overlay layers (first on Normal blending mode for each paint layer, then on Overlay blending mode for each paint layer):

watercolor_10

watercolor_11

Don’t forget to adjust the fill or the opacity of each layer until the paint and the photo layers look good.

watercolor_12

I added some journaling, and elements and art bits from the I Adore You kit, and my layout is complete.

watercolor_13

 

 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
«
»

Filed Under: Inspirational, Tips and Tricks Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Hello!

Hello, my name is Willemijne! Welcome to the Digital Scrapbook Ingredients website! Designing scrapbooking supplies is my passion and I enjoy creating new things every single day! I love to see different shapes and colors coming together and transforming concepts into consistent and unique designs. I hope you enjoy my work and that it inspires you to make beautiful layouts and preserve those precious memories!

Connect with me!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS

Subscribe to the DSI newsletter!

Categories

  • Art Journaling
  • Blog Hops
  • Freebies
  • Front Slider
  • General
  • Hybrid
  • Inspirational
  • New Products
  • Photography
  • Pocket Scrapbooking
  • Sale
  • Tips and Tricks
  • Uncategorized
  • About
  • Contact
  • Terms of Use

Copyright © 2023 · Adorn theme Setup + Customization by Jaimee