Freelance Photographer
Seeing things differently
A taker of Photographs - A creator of images

Pop Art...

This tutorial will describe how to convert an ordinary image in to a pop art image, so the the first thing we need to do is open an image...

This manipulation is best done on an image of low contrast as high contrast images require too much work...

I have chosen the image on the right to work on because it's a 60's-70's type image, the era that pop art was at its most popular...

(Move the cursor over the image on the right to see the effect...)

This is quite a long tutorial and may seem complicated, but once you get into it you will hopefully find it easy to follow... Any problems, or queries please feel free to contact me...

Once the image is open we need to create two duplicate layers, so we need to have the layers palette visible... If it's not visible you need to press the F7 key in Photoshop or the F11 key in Photoshop Elements...

Creating the two duplicate layers is easily done by dragging the original image to the icon shown by the red arrow twice...

Now we need to switch off the top layer by clicking where the black arrow is pointed and select the middle layer where the red arrow is pointing in the image below...



We now need to click on Image... Select Adjustments... Click on Threshold... As shown in the image on the right...

When Threshold is selected a new window opens showing what looks like a histogram... Beneath this histogram there is a single slider which you slide to the left until the eyes are quite clearly defined... Don't worry about how the rest of the image looks, this will be sorted out in a minute or two...

Make sure the Preview box is ticked so you can see in real time the effect the moving of the slider is having on your image...

Remember it's the eyes we are looking at here... When it looks good click on OK...

Now we switch the top layer back on by clicking again, where you clicked to switch it off (see the black arrow in the image above)...

We then select the top layer to make it active... This will temporarily override the appearance of the layer you have just been working on but don't worry...

We apply the threshold adjustment to the top layer as we did in the previous layer, but this time we adjust it to bring in more detail as shown in the image below right...

In Photoshop we now apply a layer mask to this layer by clicking on the layer mask icon shown by the Cyan arrow in the image below...



In Elements you can add a clipping mask to the layer to do this...

Now set your swatch colours to their defaults by pressing the 'D' key... If black is not the top colour then press 'X' to swap it over...

Now with a hard edged brush (indicated by the red arrow left) start to erase the parts of the mask which will reveal the detail in the eyes... Also do this to remove any other areas that may have blocked up... If you erase too much just press the 'X' key to change the foreground colour to white and go over the area again...

Remember with black as the foreground colour it will erase the mask, with white as the foreground colour it will repair the mask...

Once you have removed all the parts you don't want in the final image that you can we are ready to go on to the next step...
If there are still areas you would like to remove but can't, don't worry, this can be done in the next stage...

Next we need to merge the top two background layers that have had the threshold applied... This is done by selecting the top layer... Holding down the 'Ctrl' key and pressing the 'E' key... Alternatively, once you have selected the top layer, you can go to the little black triangle at the top of the layers palette and select Merge Down... You can now select the hard paint brush, with white as the foreground colour and paint over any bits that couldn't be removed in the previous stage...

We are almost ready to apply the paint, but first we need to create a new layer by clicking on the Create New Layer Icon shown in red or by holding down the 'Ctrl' + 'Shift' keys and pressing the 'N' key...


We now just need to alter the blending mode in the layers palette to Multiply so that if you stray over the black areas the colour won't show through...

Just select the colours you wish to use and paint over the areas you want in that colour... If you have any delicate bits to paint, like lips or eyes, you can always switch off the middle layer to reveal the original image... Making sure the top layer is still selected (as image below) you can use the original as a guide... This may look strange at first, but once you switch the middle layer back on it will look OK...



Remember this is POP ART, you don't need to be too accurate with your tools and the colours need to be bold...

Happy Painting...