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Turning Your Photo into a Watercolor with PSP7
~ by Madeleine Jacobs, Rawhide Studios

The original pencil on the left was a commissioned portrait for a dentist I had done recently and one I thought would be fun to turn into a 'watercolor' the easy way...by using PSP. With a few steps and some of the built in tools in Paint Shop Pro 7, I took an original piece of artwork and turned it into a watercolor on the right. You can do the same following the same procedures. And you don't even have to be an artist!

Using a photo with a lot of contrasts and background values, as well as lots of detail, makes a much better graphic watercolor. Experimentation will tell you at a glance what will make a good subject and what won't. This Brazilian butterfly is a simple project and an easy one to begin with. Open this butterfly image in your program to start. (just right click on this picture and choose "Save Picture As" and put it on your hard drive)

Select Effects from the tool bar menu and click on Noise. Select Salt and Pepper filter from the drop down menu. You'll see a window open like the one above and choose speck size 5 and sensitivity 10.

Your butterfly should look something like the above image.

Let's sharpen up your image a bit. Select Effects from the top tool bar and from the drop down menu, select Edge and Enhance More.

Your butterfly should now look something like this.

The butterfly needs to be sharpened after enhancing the edges. Experiment with which one you like more...a strong sharpen filter or a minimum effect. I chose a softer sharpen effect. Select Effect from the top tool bar and click on Sharpen from the drop down menu. Choose either Sharpen or Sharpen More.

Your butterfly should look something similar to this. Don't worry about the background; that will be taken care of in a moment.

I wanted to brighten up the colors somewhat so I selected Colors, Adjust from the drop down menu and Hue/Saturation/Lightness. Depending on your personal preference and taste, you can brighten the butterfly's colors. Play with the Saturation and Lightness until you are satisfied. I selected Saturation 17 and Lightness -29.

Give your butterfly a touch of lighting using the controls at the above settings.

Your finished butterfly!
 

Madeleine Jacobs owns and operates www.RawhideStudios.com and www.ArmChairPaintClasses.com and is a Drawing and Watercolor instructor at www.eclecticacademy.com