Hobbies And Interests
Half-tones
The first effect we're going to look at combines two processes. I first turned the color photo into a black and white one by changing the "mode" from CMYK color to grayscale. A filter called "half-tone" was then applied. This produces an effect similar to what photos used to look like in newspapers.
Colored Pencils
This effect uses a filter called "colored pencils." For Adobe Photoshop users, go to the filters tab and select "artistic" and "colored pencils" as the filter. This filter also asks you to choose a pencil width, stroke pressure, and paper brightness. All these filters effect how the photo is altered. There's even a preview window so you can see what changing details does to the picture. Most photo software has something similar to this feature.
Cutout
This effect simplifies the colors and edges to create a cartoon-like quality. In Photoshop you can choose how complex or simple your colors will be, how accurate the edges, and how simple the lines.
Dry Brush
The dry brush filter mimics the way an artist would paint using minimal paint -- an almost dry brush if you will. Again, this filter is selected from the "artistic" menu in Adobe Photoshop.
Paint Daubs
This filter imitates a technique used by painter where paint is dabbed on in blotches. The filter turns pixels into paint blotches.
Embossed
With this filter, you can simulate the look of an image pounded into a sheet of metal. You can adjust the angle of indention, depth, and heaviness of the embossing effect.
Note Paper
The effect known as "note paper" produces a monochrome etching that can be adjusted for depth, graininess and image balance -- a very striking effect when printed on parchment paper. Working with filters and tools that can cut and paste, clone and copy, a relatively simple program can produce really spectacular photo effects. Experiment with your software a bit and you'll discover it can do some pretty remarkable things. Check for add-on filter plug-ins for your software package. There are often lots of freebie downloadable ones, but paying a few bucks for some really good special effect filter is well worth it.