From Photos to Graphic Art
as i previously explained, i’m in desperate need of wall art for my house back in Atlanta. i’ve been playing around with some pictures in photoshop trying to make them look more graphic. the ideal image is black and white with no grays, and then i would print it, cut it out, mount it on colored cardstock, and frame it. here’s one of my cats that turned out well, people are harder because you tend to lose the faces when you up the contrast.
from this…
…to this
the basic process is this:
1. open the image in photoshop
2. convert it to grayscale
3. try to white-out most of the background (how much you leave will determine how thick the lines around your image is)
4. increase the contrast to about 50%
5. gaussian blur about 2 pixels (this gives you cleaner shapes instead of pixelated ones)
6. repeat steps 4 & 5 until you are happy with the result
7. print and enjoy
if that’s too hard, you can always make a cartoon with befunky.com. the downside is that the image is small and consequently not good for printing. here’s what the same photo looks like:
