Some Fun Filters and Other Post-Processing You Can Do Using Photo Editing Programs

I was playing around with all the various artistic filters in Photoshop one day using a photo of myself that a digital photography classmate had taken of me, as I thought it would be fun for you to see just how enjoyable it is to try these different yourself. Most of them are fairly easy to use, and are already an integral part of their respective programs.  You can even download countless free filters from the Internet for these programs to create even more special effects (just Google "filters" ~ the list is endless). 

If this is something you've felt you've wanted to do but thought to yourself, "I'm just not that creative!", I encourage you to step outside your comfort zone and give it the old team try ~ have some fun with your own photos!  The main rule of thumb here is to be sure you always make a COPY of your original photo, and use the COPY to experiment with.  That way, if you don't like the results, you haven't lost the original.  That can be pretty painful sometimes, as I can attest.

Some photo editing programs out there are Adobe Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Corel Draw, Adobe Photoshop Elements, as well as many others ~ and are currently being used by many of our very talented Gather members.  There are also some free online photo editing programs such as SUMO Paint Online Editor which is at http://sumopaint.com/web/ or FotoFlexer at http://fotoflexer.com/.

Here are multiple examples of some techniques that I utilized:

              Original Photo with a little eye color enhancement

                                     Caricature Filter

                  Liquify and Gothic Glow Filters ~ Scary, huh?

                                     Color Pencil Filter

                               Another Color Pencil Filter

                                    Embroidery Filter

                                    "Fauvism" Filter

                                       Mosaic Filter

                             Oil Painting & Gothic Filters

                               Oil Impasto Painting Filter

                                         Pastel Filter

                                     Silkscreen Filter

                                   Watercolor Filter #1 

                                    Watercolor Filter #2

Liquify Filter in Photoshop and Jewelry "Tubes" added in Paintshop Pro

This last one, which is a true cartoon characterization of the original photo, I actually drew by hand in Photoshop by placing a transparent layer over the original photo, and then drawing (with the mouse) the outlines of my hair and face, then filled them with the appropriate colors.  I was never happy with any of the cartoon filters that I found, because the result still looked too much like a photo to me, so I thought I'd step outside of MY comfort zone and draw it, somewhat shakily, by hand.  It took quite a while, and I hit the "undo" button many times!

Please feel free to email me or comment if you have any questions that I can reasonably answer without my having to go through an entire tutorial (you know, like 25 words or less ~ ha!).  Ah, and yes... speaking of tutorials, you can Google "photoshop tutorials", and you will get yet another seemingly endless list.  I found my OOB (Out of Bounds) tutorial that I've been doing a lot of lately by doing that very thing!  If there's something you want to learn to do, it's probably somewhere on the Internet, that great library in the sky.

I hope this has given you a little motivation to try some of your own creations.  I'd love it if you emailed me to let me know what you've done and learned, or just post your stuff on Gather, and I'll find it!

I'm still on a major learning curve with Photoshop, but I love experimenting and growing.  Some things turn out really well, and some things aren't so hot, but one thing is for certain: It sure keeps the brain matter intact!

Cheers!

~ Photophatty67