Photoshop Tutorial – Comic Effect

Do you like Marvel Comics, manga, or graphic novels? Have you ever imagined how it would be if you looks like one of them?

If you are interested, this tutorial will help you out.

Perfect Photoshop  tutorial for comic geeks!

1. Open up an image file that you want to make a comic effect on.
->file-open

2. Make a right click on the ‘Background’ layer, and press ‘Duplicate layer’

*Optional* Double click on the new layer’s name, and change it into ‘Line’

3. Click on the Filter tap, and go to the ‘Filter Gallery’

4. As you get into the Filter Gallery, Select ‘Poster Edges’ on the right tap, and adjust each set point

-> Edge Thickness : 10 / Edge Intensity : 10 / Posterization : 2

Press OK on the right top

5. Click on ‘Image’ tap, get to Adjustment->Threshold to make a black and white linear effect.

6. Adjust set point somewhere between 10~20 based on your image.

7. Press an eye emoticon located on the left part of your ‘Line’ Layer bar.

Duplicate the background image layer one more time

*Optional* Double click on the new layer’s name, and change it into ‘Color’

8. Get into the Filter Gallery (Filter-Filter Gallery), and adjust each set point.

-> Edge Thickness : 0 / Edge Intensity : 0 / Posterization : 2

Press OK on the right top

9. Go to ‘Level’ in the Image-Adjustment tap.

10. Set the output level into 50.

11. Go to ‘Hue/Saturation’ in the Image-Adjustment tap.

12. Set the Saturation into +35

13. Go to Oil Paint filter (Filter-Stylize-Oil Paint) and adjust each set point.

Stylization: 8 / Cleanliness: 5 / Scale: 0.1 / Bristle Detail: 0 / Angle: 0 / Shine: 0

Press OK

14. Click on the ‘Line’ Layer, and open up the eye emoticon on the layer bar.

15. Adjust the ‘Line’ layer setting into ‘Multiply’

16. Click on the Black and white Circle on the bottom of layer section, press level.

17. Move around the points of the Level section to make whole image blend altogether well.

Finish!

 

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Drawing actual comics or graphic images by hand is hard for many people. So for those people who like comics and want to create their own image, I introduce this comic effect Photoshop tutorial. It can be made out of any photographs that have taken by anyone, and isn’t hard at all as we follow this tutorial step by step.

Working on this Project, I wanted people to see how their photographs can be such dramatic, graphic image. By changing photograph with deep volume and 3-dimensional color into much more flat, strong-bordered image, I hope people to enjoy how they can make an image that looks like comic strip so easily, and explore further possibilities of effects that Photoshop can make. By adjusting series of images, they might be able to create their own comic strips.

 

 

For this project, I chose Yayoi Cusama, a famous Japanese artist. I chose her because she is a well-known, refined Asian artist who has a high technique of making art. As myself who is a student studying art, Kusama’s overcome of own trauma by making art moved my mind. Also, her aspect of making various, eye-taking patterns is something I really like. So I tried to face swap with her. I chose the image of Kusama with a fierce, vivid color of  red, and I matched it with myself in a strong red makeup. As I went through the tutorial, those two matched really well, and I am really satisfied how it turned out. It was such a great way to make a spiritual connection with myself and this artist.

For the tutorials I have been using for this work, the first one with Mona Risa and Trump was helpful to me. I think it is because I am familiar with adjusting actual settings and colors with Photoshop, so It was more easy to place the face manually and make the color fit by myself. I was thinking that if I could make tutorial on top of this, I would add how to adjust the color balance, hue and saturation of the swapped face, and overall image. By telling people how to do that in step-by-step screenshots, It won’t be so hard, and this technique would make the image more actual and natural as we swap the face.