Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to transform a photo into the style of a Vincent ban Gogh impressionist oil painting.
This is an update of a tutorial I did many years ago on an earlier version of Photoshop.
Before we begin, if you haven't already, click that "Subscribe" button to let you know as
soon as I upload new Photoshop tutorials.
Open a photo that you'd like to use for this project.
I downloaded this one from Shutterstock.
I find that landscapes work very well for this effect.
This particular photo is 1920 pixels in width by 1080 pixels in height.
Since this photo's resolution is 150 pixels per inch, I suggest that your photo have the
same resolution as well, so your results will look similar to mine.
Otherwise, you'll have to change the amounts in the filter settings.
First, let's find the dark and light colors of our photo and use this as the shadow and highlight colors.
To do this, click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Curves".
If the Properties panel is particularly hidden, just drag it down.
Alt-click or Option-click the "Auto" button, which opens the "Auto Color Correction Options window".
Tick "Find Dark & Light Colors".
Check "Snap Neutral Midtones", which adjusts the midtones so that colors that are close
to neutral are mapped to the target neutral colors.
Next, we'll increase its color vibrancy.
Click the Adjustment Layer icon and click "Vibrance".
Increase it to plus 100.
Next, we'll add a few random brush strokes in the sky.
The big yellow one will be my sun.
But first, I'll drag the Properties panel back up to make more room in the Layers Panel.
Click the New Layer icon to make a new layer.
Open your Brush Tool and Brush Picker.
If you don't see the "Legacy Brushes" folder, click the gear icon and click "Legacy Brushes".
Open the folder.
Scroll down to the Thick Heavy Brushes folder and open it.
I'll use the "Smoother Round Bristle" brush, but feel free to another brush if you like.
Then, press Enter or Return.
If your foreground and background colors aren't black and white respectively, press "D" on your keyboard.
Click the foreground color to open the Color Picker.
I'll pick a bright yellow color, but you can use whatever color you want to add to your image.
To make your brush bigger or smaller, first make sure the CapsLock key if off and press
the right or left bracket key on your keyboard.
Click a few times to build up the brush stroke.
Next, I'll add some small, white strokes.
Since the background color is white, I'll press "x" on my keyboard to invert the colors.
I'll reduce the size of my brush and randomly brush in a few strokes.
We'll convert our visible image into a Smart Object, so that the filter we'll be adding
to it will affect our entire image including the brush strokes.
Shift-click the background to make all the layers active and convert them into one Smart Object.
Go to Filter, Distort and Glass.
You could also click "Filter Gallery" and navigate to the Glass filter.
Make the Distortion: 10, the Smoothness: 15, the Texture: Canvas, and the Scaling: 100%.
Go back to Filter, Stylize and Oil Paint.
The Stylization is 10, the Cleanliness is 2, the Scale is 6, and the Bristle Detail is 10.
Check Lighting and make its Angle: minus 60 degrees and the Shine 1.5.
Next, we'll begin to make it look as if our image consists of short, thick brush strokes.
Convert it into a Smart object, so we can continue to add layers of filters to our existing image.
Go to Filter, Artistic and Paint Daubs.
The Brush Size is 10, the Sharpness is 30 and the Brush Type is "Simple".
This Paint Daubs filter gives us an underlayer of brush strokes we want, however,
it blows out the details in white and bright areas.
To reveal back those details, open your Quick Selection Tool and make its size anywhere
between 5 to 10 pixels.
Make sure this icon is active, which adds selections as we make them.
Draw inside blown out areas where you'd like to reveal back detail.
Make the layer mask active.
We want to fill the selections with black, so if your foreground and background colors
are white and black respectively, press Ctrl or Cmd + Delete.
Then, deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D. Notice, it filled those areas in our
layer mask, which is masking out the paint daubs effect inside of those black areas.
Convert this stage of our image into a Smart Object, as well.
Next, we'll brighten and add more contrast to the colors.
Since Smart Objects don't allow us to paint over them, we need to make a composite snapshot of our image.
Make a new layer and press Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E on Windows or Option + Cmd + Shift + E on a Mac.
If your image is a landscape, we'll create a selection of the land or the sky,
so we can affect each of them separately.
To do this, make sure your Quick Selection tool is still active.
If it isn't, press "w" on your keyboard.
Drag the tool over the land or the sky to make a selection of it.
To remove areas of the selection, press and hold Alt or Option as you drag over those areas.
Presently the selection is over the land portion of the image, which means when we paint over
the land, the sky will be protected from the paint and vice-versa.
For this particular image, I want to brighten the midtones and the highlights of the land
and darken the shadows of the sky.
To brighten areas of your image, we'll use the Dodge Tool and to darken it, we'll use the Burn Tool.
The more you paint over an area with the Dodge or Burn tool, the lighter or darker it becomes.
I'll use a brush size of 700 pixels, but feel free to make it bigger or smaller.
Open the Range list.
"Shadows" lightens or darkens the dark areas, "Midtones" changes the middle range of tones,
and "Highlights" changes the light areas.
The "Exposure" essentially affects the tool's strength.
I suggest that you make it between 40 to 45%.
With the Midtones range selected, I'll brush over the land.
I'll click "Highlights" and brush over it to brighten the lightest areas even more.
Next, I'll burn in the darkest areas of the sky to increase its contrast.
To do this, I need to invert my selection.
I'll press Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + I. I'll open my Burn Tool and click "Shadows".
I'll make the "Exposure": 100% and brush over the sky.
Then, I'll deselect it.
Next, we'll warp our image, which will give it even more of a look of van Gogh's style.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + T to open your Transform Tool.
Click the Warp Transform icon.
If your using a version earlier than CC 2020, click the "Custom" tab and play with various presets in the list.
For example, if I click "Wave", and drag the Bend scrubby slider to the right or left,
you can see how it warps the image.
When you click the Bend icon, it changes the direction from a vertical warp to a horizontal warp.
If you're using CC 2020 or later, open the Grid list and click 5 by 5.
This gives us a grid of 25 boxes that we can manipulate individually.
Clicking and dragging on the anchor point let's us reposition it or we can drag on the
direction point or on the split line.
Continue to push, pull, drag and rotate the anchor points, direction points and split
lines until it resembles the curvy, swirling shapes that's become a hallmark of van Gogh's style.
To accept it, click the check-mark at the top.
Let's increase our image's vibrancy and saturation more by clicking the Adjustment Layer icon
and clicking "Vibrance".
Increase the Vibrance 100% and the Saturation 25%.
Lastly, we'll give the brush strokes more dimension.
Make the composite snapshot layer active and convert it into a Smart Object.
Go to Filter, Stylize and Oil Paint.
This time, make the Stylization: 1, the Cleanliness: 8, the Scale: 10, and the Bristle Detail:10.
Keep the Angle at minus 60 degrees and make the Shine: 2.
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!