experiments in 'watercolor' filtering

[Ernest Burden III]

I have been experimenting with using Photoshop to 'watercolor' filter photos. I don't like the stock WC filter, so I've tried other ways to get a similar result, and recording the attempts in case it actually works.

 

Here are some tests. #1 is a photo I took, the rest are generic photos.

 

I think these still look more like photos than paintings. I would really like to get them even more 'painted' looking, but still being a single click process.

 

The uses for this would be backgrounds, skies, softening textures used in a model.

[Ernest Burden III]

Two more...

[bigcahunak]

tried some too

[nisus]

Hi Ernest,

 

Imho you have too much median filtering all over the image... Try to add it with different values on each channel to beat this.

 

Also an overlay with a highpass filter can do a great job... ;-)

 

rgds

 

nisus

[Ernest Burden III]

Imho you have too much median filtering all over the image... Try to add it with different values on each channel to beat this.

 

Also an overlay with a highpass filter can do a great job... ;-)

 

Don't just say, DO.

 

I do use different values on the median, and in the LAB color channels, not RGB ones to avoid neon color edges. I used high values to even out the tones, make them more like a traditional wash rather than try to capture all detail. That is because the purpose is so they can fit into a NPR rendering, not be one on their own.

 

The same for the highpass to generate lines--I figure either the render will not have heavy lines, or I would be using a different technique to generate them, and would use the SAME on as the overall piece so that entourage items match the rendering.

[kicks]

ernest

[bigcahunak]

Would you like to share your steps?

Who? Me?... why?..

hehe

Well, didnt really record it, as it was a very very quick test to see what ernest didn't like about the original PS WC filter.

• Copy background to new layer
  
• WC filter on the new layer
  
• Change to 'darken' BM and lower opacity (I think it was about 70%)
  
• Flaten image
  
• mid marker in 'Levels' to about 1.40
  
• a very soft "S" shape in curves
  
• end of gig
  

I bet you can record it as action with different values along the way for more shaded or brighter images.

[Ernest Burden III]

My problem with the Photoshop 'watercolor' filter, and several similar ones, is the way that it adds black. In traditional watercolor, black is death. A proper pallette does not have ANY black paint, no grays either. You mix your darks from complimentaries. So when PS adds black (shadow intensity) it ruins it for me.

 

In reality, dark edges to washes are not black, but more pigment saturated areas of the same paint. Sometimes there is a little mixing with a neighbor.

 

Even though I have a WC rendering or two in my past, I looked at the work of a lot of other people to see how they painted trees, cars and especially people. Common to most, there is a simplification of those elements (from how you would paint them if they were the subject of the picture, and not entourage). So that is part of what I'm seeking to do--simplify.

 

And this is a one-click thing. My recorded action is very long, dozens of steps (maybe 100?), but some of them are un-necessary. I recorded my experiments, so some things I try, then delete, try something else, and it's all recorded.

[Frosty]

Here's my first kick at the cat.

[Frosty]

Ernest, I understand fully what you are tryin to accomplish. Perhaps these arent the proper subjects. Perhaps we should be using a person, car or tree. DOes anyone such stock art for us to play with?

[Cynthia Hansen]

Well, here's my attempt at it. It's rather rough and probably too brightly colored for you but ah well, I figured it might be worth a look.

[Fran]

That is really nice Cynthia. Looks very much like watercolor to me.

[Cynthia Hansen]

Thanks Fran!

[Fran]

Here is my shot at the plant, but it certainly wasn't a one-click thing. It's a combination of glass distortion, diffuse glow, gaussian blur, and watercolor. Each filter is faded on certain channels. Wish I hadn't done the paper texture.

 

[edited to add]

 

Here is a version without the texture.

[William Alexander]

Ernest,

 

For what it may be worth....

 

Black is good, if it's a problem. Use a channel, any channnel create a mask, then adjust the contrast of the mask after application to the WC filtered layer.

 

For that matter you could cut the black out using the mask and then saturation adjustment layer of a mask from the cut black or something to that effect.

 

Heres my try using the channel method, then before knowing using about the same methods as Fran to the original image visible through the adjusted channel based mask. The top layer is straight WC filter.

 

Cheers

WDA

[Cynthia Hansen]

Nice one Fran, and here's my try at the plant

[Cynthia Hansen]

and last one...

[Ernest Burden III]

Wow!

 

I'm really glad to see so many of you trying versions of this! I didn't expect that, but am really glad to see it.

 

Fran, your second try is really good.

 

I would be willing to post my action, though it uses some filtering through Eye Candy3, but it is available free (legal) on the web.

 

One thing I have found--original size matters. The inages I posted were downsized to fit the attacxhment requirements--the originals were in the 1.5K - 2K range. If you want your WC action to show more detail, up-size it first, or, to simplify more, downsize.

 

Also--I love color. Some of the tests posted are less saturated than mine, which is just a matter of taste, and either way, a simple matter to change in Photoshop.

 

But I stand by my statement--black is death. Once an area of an image gets black, it has no color left to recover, it's dead. This is not so much an issue with RGB monitors, since black is just a lack of light, but when you print these pictures on a CMYK process, the black ink can really take over, ruining the piece. Remember--in watercolor, the paper is seen shining through the paint almost always. That is the 'luminence' that watercolor has--not the paint, but the paper. So in doing a digital version, there should never be a complete loss of that luminence.

 

In my opinion.

[Ernest Burden III]

and last one...

 

I really like that one--how did you do it?

[TheAllusionisst]

Make sure to share, if willing, what you come up with if you are successful. After applying the water color there is a fade water color option under edit I believe, this atleast helps eliminate a little of the super strong contrast. As for other filters, I like 'Fantastic Machines' "Paint Engine", I find I have tweak the setting per image to get things just right and it sometimes helps out to apply before applying other filters. Great topic!

[Cynthia Hansen]

Hi Ernest,

for the last one I added a saturation layer(+54 for saturation), merged it, applied the water color filter, duplicated the layer,applied the sketch water paper filter (fiber length 3, brightness 100, contrast 30), changed the opacity of that layer to 20% and merged the two layers, and finally added a slight gaussian blur to it.

[Ernest Burden III]

As for other filters, I like 'Fantastic Machines' "Paint Engine"

 

I don't know that one. Would you run one or two the posted 'before' images through it and post the results?

[jysngltndz]

ernest heres my try...wc + median

[jysngltndz]

heres two more....

[rivoli]

here's my try. just tried to achieve a kind of watercolour quickly sketched. usually these drawings have large white nonpainted areas and lack a lot of detail. don't know if it works or not, the images look a bit confused.