Painting Effects

Turn your photos (and other images) into sketches, water colors, etc.

Requirements: Paint Shop Pro 7

Note for PSP 6 Users:
There are effects that I mention in this tutorial that are not available in PSP 6.

Basic use of PSP.

Open your image, Shift + D to duplicate you image, (or use Window/Duplicate from the menu bar) and close your original image. All of the work will be done on your copy.

Right click on your background layer and select Duplicate.

Now we will apply the Chrome effect to the duplicated layer of our image.

PSP 7: Effects/Artistic Effects/Chrome

Settings:
Flaws = 2 / Brightness = 10 / Color = White / Original Color = unchecked

The lines are made by taking our chromed image and tracing the contours.

PSP 7: Effects/Edge/Trace Contour

Let's blend that top layer with our original image by changing the Layer Blend mode to Burn.

That is starting to shape up, but it is way too dark. It needs a little adjustment!

PSP 7: Layers/New Adjustment Layer/Levels

For this image I chose the following settings:

Channel RBG
Input Levels - 13 / 2.00 / 255
Output Levels - 0 / 255

Adjust your settings to achieve the amount of lightness your photo needs.

Here is my finished Photo!

This is only one possibility! Experiment! Try some of the other Artistic Effects built into PSP7, or use some of those plug in filters you have hanging around. Different Layer Blend Modes and adding various Adjustment Layers will give your photos some striking results!