Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to create a cartoon portrait from a photo
without the use of the Oil Paint filter nor any of the filters in Filter Gallery.
Before we begin, if you enjoy my tutorials, please hit that “Subscribe” button to
let you know as soon as I upload new ones.
Open a photo of someone that you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
The first step is to crop our photo.
Open your Crop Tool.
Click the "Clear" button to clear your Crop settings.
For the width and height, type in 1500 pixels each and for the resolution, type in 72 pixels per inch.
Make sure you check, "Delete Cropped Pixels".
Drag the corners of the Crop's bounding box to size and position your subject.
Then, press Enter or Return or click the check-mark at the top.
To fit it back onto your canvas, press Ctrl or Cmd + 0.
Or you can zoom in or out incrementally by pressing Ctrl or Cmd and the plus or the minus
key on your keyboard.
Next, we'll separate our subject from its background by making a selection around our subject.
There are many ways to do this and your choice should depend of the characteristics of your photo.
For this example, I'll use the Quick Selection Tool.
If you're using this tool as well, make it's radius 10 or 15 pixels.
Drag the tool over your subject to select it.
To remove selections outside your subject, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas.
To check it, press "Q" on your keyboard to see it as a quick mask.
Revert it back into a selection by pressing "Q" again.
To refine its edges, go to Select.
If you're using a version earlier than CC 2015.5, click "Refine Edge".
If you're using a later version, click "Select and Mask".
If you prefer to use Refine Edge instead of "Select and Mask", Shift-click "Select and Mask".
I did in-depth tutorials on both of these filters, so if you'd like to watch them,
click their respective links in this video's description below the video.
Check "Smart Radius".
This enables the brush to detect hard and smooth edges.
Brush over the edge of the hair.
Check "Decontaminate Color", to prevent background colors from leaching into the edge of your subject.
Keep its default amount to 50% and output it to a "New Layer with Layer Mask".
We'll convert our image into a Smart Object, so we can modify it nondestructively.
To do this, click the icon at the upper, right and click, "Convert to Smart Object".
Go to Image, Adjustments and "Shadows/Highlights".
I'll reduce the Shadows to zero, we can see how it affects our image.
Dragging the Shadows slider to the right lightens the shadows based on their surrounding pixels.
For this image, I'll make the amount: 10% and the Highlights: 20%,
but feel free to adjust these amounts for your image.
Go to Filter, Sharpen and "Unsharp Mask".
make the Amount 150% and the Radius: 2 pixels.
To automatically enhance our image's brightness and contrast,
click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Curves".
We want the curves adjustment layer to affect only our subject, but because adjustment layers
affect all the layers below them in the Layers panel, we'll want to clip it to our subject.
To do this, click the Clipping Mask icon or go to Layer and "Create Clipping Mask".
Alt-click or Option-click "Auto", which opens the "Auto Color Corrections Options" window.
By default, the "Enhance Brightness and Contrast" option is ticked.
Click OK.
To save space in the Layers panel, we'll place our subject and the Curves layer into a folder.
To do this, Shift-click your subject to make it active as well, and press Ctrl or Cmd + G.
I'll name the folder, "Subject".
We'll create a new layer below it by Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking the New Layer icon.
In this empty layer, we'll create our background.
Click the foreground color and pick a color for your background.
You can always change it later if you want.
Once you pick your color, click OK or press Enter or Return.
Now, our foreground color is the color we just picked.
To fill the empty layer with that color, press Alt or Option + Delete.
Next, we'll add an inner circle to the background to make our cartoon pop.
Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer.
Open your "Elliptical Marquee Tool" and go to the center of your subject.
Before you do anything, press and hold Alt or Option + Shift and then, drag out a circle approximately this size.
To move it in any direction, press any of the arrow keys on your keyboard.
Click your foreground color again and pick a color for the inner circle.
Fill the selection with the color you picked and deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D.
Let's group these layers into a folder using the same steps that you used for the subject folder.
Name this folder, "Background".
Temporarily hide the background folder and make your subject folder active.
Above it, we'll create a composite snapshot of our subject by pressing Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E
on Windows or Option + Cmd + Shift + E on a Mac.
Normally, I'd choose to make our subject into a Smart Object instead of making it into a
composite snapshot, but the next effect doesn't work on Smart Objects.
Hide the "Subject" folder and go to Filter, Stylize and "Diffuse".
Tick "Anisotropic" and click OK.
So, you can see my image closer, I’ll press “z” to open my Zoom Tool and drag it over an area.
As you can see, there are there are distracting horizontal patterns that appear over the subject.
You’ll have these on your image, as well.
We'll get rid of them using the following steps.
Go to Edit, Transform and "Rotate 90 degrees Clockwise".
We'll repeat the anisotropic diffuse filter by pressing Alt or Option + F. Go back to
Edit, Transform and "Rotate 90 degrees Clockwise".
Again, repeat the Diffuse filter.
Repeat these steps again and then one last time.
Convert your image into a Smart Object, so we can continue to add filters to it non-destructively.
Make your background folder visible.
Next, we'll tighten up the edges of our subject.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click your subject to make a selection of its shape.
Go to Select, Modify and Contract.
Contract it 1 pixel.
Go back to Select, Modify and "Smooth".
Smooth it 5 pixels.
Click the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection next to our subject.
Make the subject active.
Go to Filter, Noise and "Reduce Noise".
Make the Strength: 10, Preserve Details: 100%, Reduce Color Noise: 0% and Sharpen Details: 80%.
"Remove JPEG Artifact" is checked.
Go back to Filter, Sharpen and "Unsharp Mask".
The Amount is 100%, the Radius is 2 pixels and the Threshold is 0 levels.
Next, we'll smooth out the skin.
Go to Filter, Blur and "Surface Blur".
The Radius is 30 pixels and the Threshold is 20 levels.
We'll brighten the shadows again by going to Image, Adjustments and "Shadows/Highlights".
Make the Shadows amount: 20% and the Highlights: 10%.
Next, we'll make it pop more by increasing its contrast.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Levels".
Then, clip it to your subject.
Drag the Input Highlight slider to approximately where the histogram starts to rise
and the Input Shadow slider to a point where you like the look of the shadows.
Next, we'll add a thin border around the perimeter of our subject.
Make a new layer and Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the layer mask to make a selection of its shape.
Go to Select and click "Select and Mask" or Shift-click it to open Refine Edge.
Smooth it 50, make the Contrast: 100% and Shift the Edge minus 5%.
Go to Edit and "Stroke:.
Make the Width: 6 pixels.
Click the color box and click the darkest color of your image to pick up its color.
Make its Location: "Center" and click OK.
Then, deselect it.
Lastly, we'll make our colors more vibrant.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click, "Vibrance".
Drag the Vibrance all the way to 100%.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!