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Watercolour Images
From Your Photographs
Converting a photograph to a simulated watercolour image is the subject
of this tutorial.
I’ve long been a fan of the watercolours of both the modern French
painter Charles Cambier, and Charles, Prince of Wales. Both have
totally different styles yet embrace the width of the medium.
In my tutorial on Impressionist Painting from
photographs, I explored the simulation of texture. Oil based and
acrylic based paints are often used to exploit the property of
thixotropy (the property exhibited by certain gels of becoming
fluid when stirred or shaken and returning to the semisolid state upon
standing) of the paint which eventually hardens in air in the
shape
and texture left by the brush.
Water based paints do not have that property.
Texture in the painting is implied from the surface to which the
watercolour medium is applied, and this is achieved from the origin and
nature of the cellulose (wood, linen, cotton, rag etc) and the method
by which it has been turned into paper.
The watercolour medium itself is usually an inorganic pigment, either
naturally
occurring mineral, or, synthetic as an insoluble salt. It is this
insolubility that confers its properties as a pigment.
Modification of the medium is possible in terms of translucency by the
origin and nature of the pigment (colour) and any chemical additives
and varnishes.
During the experimentation leading to this tutorial I tested other
workers’ methods including conversion of methods from other packages
(such as Photoshop) with varying degrees of success. The method I
stumbled across by total accident is unique, and allows modification
(or tweaking).
Watercolour From A Photograph
As in previous tutorials, I advise working on a copy of your photograph
and NOT the original.
The photograph was taken at Whitianga New Zealand, on the waterfront,
in the
evening in December in the early summer. The pattern of the trees
interested me, but the straight image did not convey the feeling of the
place.
Step One
File > Open will open
the image for processing.
Image > Image Information
will provide the size of the image that
you are intending to process.
Make note of the image size as you'll need this in step two.
The image chosen has a white clad figure close to the first complete
tree and a rather unsightly No Parking sign to the left of the
tree. These two items are distracting.
Using the clone brush these two distracting parts of the image were
removed. Parts of the image to the right of the figure were used
for replacement.
Review the Clone Tool tutorial if you are
not sure how to remove an object.
Here's the original with the white clad figure and the No Parking sign
removed ...
Step Two
Make a new blank image using File
> New, with the dimensions the
same as the picture you’re processing at 300pixels (suitable for
printing later) and as a white image (this information was that gained
in step one).
You’ll need to repeat this process later for another layer so make a
note of the dimensions you’ve used.
If you’re not familiar with layers, you may want to look at the Layers Tutorial.
Step Three
Switch back to the image you’re processing and copy it Edit >
Copy. Then switch to the blank image and paste it as a
layer Edit > Paste As New Layer.
Then close the original image down
as we are going to use a lot of memory. Set the blend mode to
normal. If at a later stage you're not happy with your picture, you can
edit the image layer, or go back to the original and edit that, and
then paste it in as a replacement.
Basic Guide to Blend Modes
Creative Uses of Blend Modes
Step Four
Select Effects > Distortion
Effects > Displacement Map (I don’t
really know how it works – but it seems to!). This is the first
step to making the image watercolour-ish.
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NOTE:
The displacing
map, ie
the image that does the distorting of the chosen image, distorts
according to the grey values of its pixels. The further the pixel
value is from mid grey (128); (Black = 0; white = 255); the greater
the distortion.
The greater
the change in the map pixel value from a
higher to lower or lower to higher pixel value, the greater the
distortion in the image. The blur value changes the distance in the
image which is influenced by the map. The intensity value is the
number of pixels in the image which will be distorted. The rotation
is the direction from which the pixels will be pushed.
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Choose a number less than 10 for the blur. Larger numbers seem to
have little or no effect.
What we are doing by not choosing a different image or graphic for the
displacement map is make the image act as a map for, and to distort
itself.
Large numbers blur the edge of the map and so have little effect on the
image you're trying to distort. Small numbers make the image
displace itself a lot.
Then using the identical settings, repeat Effects > Distortion
Effects > Displacement Map. You can repeat this several
times if
you wish to enhance the effect to your taste.
I’ve chosen three times.
Step Five
Make a new blank image using File
> New, with the dimensions the
same as the picture you’re processing at 300pixels (suitable for
printing later) and as a white image.
Copy it Edit > Copy.
Then switch to the image you are
processing and paste it as a layer (Edit
> Paste As New
layer). Then close the new blank image down to save
memory.
Set the blend mode to Overlay, and the Opacity of the layer to around
50%
Step Six
Choose this blank upper layer and create a textured layer by Effects
> Texture Effects >Texture where you can really go to town
with
the settings and the choice of texture.
I’ve chosen Canvas coarse. You could even photograph a texturised
surface and paste that into the top layer.
Step Seven
Select the middle picture layer and add a mask layer onto which you'll
paint to reveal the now hidden image. Layers > New
Mask layer > Hide all. The tutorial on Mask Layers will provide further
guidance on masking and mask layers.
As the watercolour painting in the next step occurs your layers palette
should look
like this ...
Step Eight
I’m no artist and my brush settings were chosen by
experimentation.
The tutorial on Brush Variance will give more
help on brushes and their control with a Wacom tablet.
The Option Bar ...
Use a large brush for the sky and larger areas. Use a finer brush
for detail. I chose to set the brush size to increase with
pressure on my tablet. Beyond this advice you are on your own.
You can try out some of the dynamics to see what happens. The
Lightness setting and the Density setting set to pressure and fooling
about with the Jitter setting will produce some interesting results.
You'll need to experiment with your watercolour painting. Paint
on the mask layer using white to
reveal your masterpiece.
That
doesn’t look at all too bad, but just lacks that “extra”. The
trees give a pattern that you expect to see continued as the image
flows from right to left; but there lies two problems.
First,
we’d normally read left to right; second, we need a “surprise” to break
the pattern. It exists in the original but not in the modified
distortions.
Step Nine
Go back to the original and enhance the figure. Adjust > Hue
and Saturation > Hue/Saturation/Lightness. The overall
saturation is raised in the master setting and the red saturation in
red setting.
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Master
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Reds
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Copy it Edit > Copy.
Switch to the master image set and paste it as a layer Edit > Paste As New Layer above
the original image layer.
Add a mask layer onto
which you'll paint to reveal the enhanced red figure Layers >New Mask Layer > Hide
All. And paint away in white to reveal the red
figure as your watercolour comes to life.
All that remains now to be done is to merge all of the layers down and
to mirror the image. Image >
Mirror.
I think this conveys how Whitianga felt on that warm Saturday evening
in December.
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Visual Properties of
Watercolour Paintings
The Watercolour medium is characterized by the use of insoluble
pigments suspended in water applied by brush or pen or finger to a
support usually paper, although other supports are known.
Watercolours are often more vivid than oil based images because the
pigments are applied in an undiluted state. The surface texture
of the support enhances the nature of the image.
Some pigments and painting techniques allow the medium to be applied
very thinly, allowing under-drawing or –painting to be visible.
Others applied thickly produce vivid colour produced by the scattering
of light.
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