A Photo's Journey to Watercolor

by Kathy Garvey

Photoshop is so much fun that I call my time with it playtime. One of the things I like to do with an already beautiful photo is make it look like a watercolor or sketch. Below is a recent example. The photo on the left was taken in a research garden in Washington state in July of this year. The place was magnificent and I'm just starting to use my photos from it. The image on the right is just one "painted" version of it. (Click to enlarge.)

There are many ways to go from the view on the left to the one on the right, but for this, I used the Pattern Stamp Tool (which is hidden under the Clone Stamp Tool).

I first cleaned up the spider webs and then applied a few filters to make it look more like a watercolor. (My favorite filters for a watercolor look are Paint Daubs, Dry Brush, and Poster Edges.) I fiddle with them until I have something I like. Then I work at making it into a piece I would be happy to print. That meant adding a frame and border with colors from the image for this photo. 

But to take it further, I selected the succulent area (just within the frame) and made it a pattern  (Edit>Define Pattern). I opened a new file of the same size and dimensions as the pattern and on a new layer "painted" it back in using the Pattern Stamp Tool and some custom watercolor brushes. (Select the Pattern Stamp Tool and then in the top bar, choose a brush and your pattern. Leave Aligned checked and Impressionist unchecked for this look.)

I keep adding layers with different brushes and different opacities until I have a look I like. The process is so fast that you can just keep adding new layers and painting again and again. Two other versions are below. The left one was just adding more brushes and also painting soft colors from the image on layers underneath it. The one on the right was using a custom sketch brush.

And, since the process is so fun and fast, you can experiment. Below, I started with a larger 12x12 inch file size and unchecked the Aligned feature for the Pattern Stamp Tool. When you do that, the position you are painting changes every time you lift the brush. (It's such a hoot! I love it!) The two different versions below each took less than five minutes from start to finish.

PS  If you are curious about the Impressionistic option, here's what you would get if you check it for this image.

Crazy as that is, it makes a nice background if you then uncheck Impressionistic and paint over it.

Find a favorite photo and give it a try!