Once I open this smart object and place my image inside, The effect will be applied instantly like that.
And with our FREE action, we can transform it into a fully editable vector ready for export to any vector software such as Illustrator.
Now Let's jump into photoshop and get started
Let's Start by creating a new document, 2500px by 2500px will be ok.
Go to File > Place Embedded and choose the image you want to use.
You can find the download link for this image and other assets in the video description below.
Let's hide the background by selecting your object with the "Select Subject" button, then mask it from here.
Now, Select both layers, right-click to convert them to a smart object. This will make any applied filters non-destructive and editable.
Now our layer is ready. Let's see how to create the effect.
First, add a Hue & Saturation layer and desaturate the image by dragging the saturation slider all the way to the left.
Then Add a Levels adjustment layer, but leave it un-edited for now.
Finally, add a Posterize layer, which is the hero of our today's effect.
Simply applying Posterize layer on a desaturated layer, will reduce the number of colors in your image to a specified level.
So at level 2, you'll get black and white image.
And at level:3, you'll get black, white, and grey colors.
And at level:4, you'll get a black, white, and 2 grey colors... and so on.
Set it to 6 for now, and let's apply a few filters to our layer.
Go to Filter > Stylize and apply the oil paint filter.
Drag both Stylization and Cleanliness to the middle and uncheck Lighting.
Since lighting is unchecked, both Scale and Bristle Details will be inactive. Keep them at any value and click OK.
The second filter will be the Surface Blur filter.
Just change radius to 20 with 10 Threshold.
This will further smooth the skin, just like that.
The last filter will be the unsharp mask filter.
Set Sharpness Amount to 150 and Radius to 20, with a 0 Threshold.
This will enhance the sharpness and contrast of our effect, resulting in a drawn-like appearance for areas like hair.
Finally, let's add a "Shadows & Highlights" layer.
Shadows if you don't know are the darkest areas in your image & Highlights are the brightest areas.
Shadows slider bring back details of shadows by bighting them. and Highlights slider brings back details of highlights by darkening them.
I find 40 & 20 are doing a good job with most images.
Despite being just an adjustment layer, "Shadows & Highlights" will be applied as a smart filter, making it easily editable.
To finish the effect, press Ctrl+J to duplicate the layer.
Then, go to Filter > Stylize and choose Oil Paint again.
This time, set the Stylization and Cleanliness sliders to 10.
Repeat the filter five more times from the latest applied filter.
And There you have it! Our final vector effect is ready. But It's just an effect right now, we'll vectorize it later.
Save it as a PSD file for any later use by going to File > Save As and choosing PSD as the file format.
So After creating our effect, let’s explore the main three settings for the best results with different images.
First up is the Levels adjustment layer, which controls the color distribution of our image. By moving the sliders, we can change how much black, white, and gray we have in our image.
You should experiment with the sliders until you have a good result.
The second setting is Posterize. Posterize lets you choose the number of colors you want in your image.
I’ll keep it at 6 for now.
The third setting is the opacity of the top layer. As you can see, some details are lost in the eyes.
And to bring back details in general, you can either reduce the opacity of the top layer.
OR Just add a layer mask to the layer, and paint with a black brush over the areas you want to reveal.
You can skip this part if you want, I will just show you how I used BLEND IF to vectorize images, And Why I used it!
I've created these two gradients on top of each other, both going from 100% black to 100% white.
Let’s open the layer style of the top layer by double-clicking on it.
Blend If is simply a feature that allows you to blend one layer with another based on their brightness.
You can find the Blend If feature right here, It has two sliders: the first for the current layer, and the second for layers below it.
Each sliders have 2 handles, one for the bright areas and one for the dark areas.
Moving the bright handle of the current layer will HIDE the bright areas gradually from the current layer.
And moving the dark handle will HIDE the dark areas from the current layer.
And for the underlying layer slider: Moving the bright handle will SHOW the bright areas of the underlying layer. This by hiding parts of the current layer.
And moving the dark handle will SHOW the dark areas of the underlying layer.
And this is the main idea behind ‘blend if’.
To convert this image to a vector, I need to vectorize each of the six colors separately.
In this part, I'll show you the process for the black color.
So after merging all layers, I'll open the layer style of the merged layer.
And since there's only one layer, I'll use the "Current Layer" slider.
And by moving the bright handle, all the bright areas will disappear gradually until I have only the black color.
I need to make a selection around the black color by holding CTRL and clicking on the layer's thumbnail.
Once the selection is ready, I'll convert it to a work path from the Paths panel.
And without going anywhere, I'll create a solid color from here.
This results in a shape or vector layer, like this.
You can use the Pen tool to fully edit it or even export it to Illustrator right away.
But we still need to vectorize the other 5 colors. and this is a very time consuming process!
That's why I made an Action to do the entire job for you.
Now Let’s return to the original state of our effect from the History panel.
And also let's hide the background because I want to create a vector image without any backgrounds.
I'll simply double-click the layer's thumbnail to open it, then hide or delete the background layer, and click CTRL+S to update it..
Exit the Smart object and also this document, and get back to the main document.
It's time to import the action from the Actions Panel right here... You can download This action for Free from the video description below.
Just Open the action from here, Select "Run", then click on this little run icon to play it.
You will get some instructions, just click continue as I will explain them to you right now.
When the action runs, a layer style window will appear. Each time it does, drag this slider to reveal a new color each time and click OK.
Right now I will bring back the slider to reveal the white color. and then click OK.
A color window will appear, use the eyedropper tool to pick the white color. then click OK.
Now drag the slider to reveal the next color.
Here is the new color!
Now Pick it with the eydropper tool.
Drag the slider until you see the third color.
Pick the third color with the eyedropper tool.
Drag the slider to reveal the 4th color.
Pick the 4rth color.
Do this for the 5th color, You need to be focused so that you won't do a color twice.
And finally drag the slider all the way to the left to reveal the black color.
Once you pick the black color and click OK, Exit the action from here or just click the "Escape" button.
And here we go! let's see what we've got!
Now we have 6 vector layers on top of each other.
AND Here is why I chose to use “blend if” for the selections; because other tools like “magic wand tool” or “color range” would leave gaps between layers, making the overall vector output look very bad!
By Picking the Direct Selection Tool, and selecting all layers, you can clearly see the anchor points and pathes of all layers.
Also, you can even edit whatever you want like that.
And If you upscale your image _let's say_ 10 times larger, The vector result will not lose any quality at all.
Just zoom in to see the difference!
Look how crisp and high-detailed our vector image is!
And here is how our raster image lost its quality.
Let's get back to the state of our image before upscaling.
Now, let’s run the second action to export our vector image to Illustrator.
A "save As" window will appear, just Choose EPS filetype from there, and click Save.
Make sure that "Include Vector Data" is checked.
Now let's open the EPS file we just saved with Illustrator.
Here is our vector image inside illustrator; A fully editable vector with full layers, paths and vector data.
In this final step, we will use our PSD file and the free Action to vectorize a new image in a few seconds.
First let's open the PSD file that we created earlier.
Double-click the smart object thumbnail to open it.
Once you get inside the smart object, Import your new image there.
Remove the background using "Select Subject" button as I explained before.
Hide or delete the old layers, Then press CTRL+S to update the smart object.
Get back to the main document.
For this image I would like to change the Posterize levels to 4, to get a 4 color vector result.
Also I will adjust the levels to get the best possible color distribution.
Finally, I will fix the eyes by decreasing the top layer opacity.
And here is the initial result!
To vectorize it, I will run the action as before.
Reveal and pick color by color as I explained before.
And here is the result!
I forgot to mention that you can change each layer color by double-clicking its thumbnail like that.
And that's it for today! I hope you enjoyed the video. Don't foregut to check out this amazing video next!
Thanks For watching & See you Soon!