"cartoon" "comic" conversion filter

[consultmark]

There are SO many programs now available (as well as older programs that may no longer be in general use) that I just don't have time to explore. I am looking for an image filter (or entire program?) dedicated to converting photos to "cartoon" - "comic"/ "graphic book" images. If you know of such a product, please post a reference/link. Also, anyone have any experience using such a product...I would appreciate your impressions/thoughts/criticisms of the product you used. Thank you for helping me speed up my research!! regards, mark

[LeviFiction]

Well there are a number of options. Paint Shop Pro has a Color Sketch script that applies filters that are traditionally used in other editors to get the comic book effect.

The basic idea is to first duplicate the image onto another layer. Greyscale the layer and then duplicate that one as well. Set a negative image filter to this second greyscale layer. Then set the blend mode of this now negative layer to Dodge, it should go white. Then apply a blur filter to the negative image layer, Average is most common but other blur modes also work. One that allows you to set the level of blurring is best. This is like a pencil sketch effect.

Finally you take the original image and put it above all of the other layers and set the blend mode to burn. In Photoshop it's linear Blur.

Now I don't know about plugin filters that do any good jobs but I do have a few options other than just this small method.

One example that I wish we had more of a point to point match on is this Photoshop tutorial http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/Photosh ... ok-effect/

Paint Shop Pro does not have a Film Grain effect or a layer stroke effect. It does however have the halftone filter so something can be done to work around what Paint Shop Pro lacks.

http://www.comeeko.com/ Is a webservice that allows you to create comics out of photos, but I'm not overly sure if the average user would want to use it....hard to say. Here's a tutorial written on using this service. http://www.ampercent.com/turn-pictures- ... line/5462/

IntoCartoon is a piece of software that does comic like effects for your photos. It's not really expensive but not everyone would be willing to spend the money. There is a trial version of the pro version of the software if you'd like to check it out though. http://www.intocartoon.com/

Befunky is another webservice that offers the cartoonizer effect. http://www.befunky.com/features

And that's all I've got. I'm sure there are plugins for this sort of thing that work with Paint Shop Pro, PhotoImpact, and Photoshop but I never took the time to find them.

[consultmark]

Thank you very much for your time and effort in posting a great response! I got so bogged in work and life I didn't get right back into this and then discovered I had misplaced my notes about the post...Nevertheless, good stuff! (and I will follow up and try your techniques). I'm always interested in other/better ways of quickly converting photographic images...

[somneim]

Every new program for photo editing have some sorts of filter to cartoonize your photo.

[wds937]

In addition to the PSP scripts, I have also used Kodak Easyshare. It has two effects, in particular, that you may want. One is Cartoon, and the other is Coloring Book. The major difference is that Cartoon retains colors (at least a limited subset of the original), whereas Coloring Book is black outlines with white fill.

The current version is at http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=130&pq-locale=en_US&_requestid=39630. I have an older version, so I don't know if the features are the same.

[c3grfx]

I realize this is an old post w/year old threads, but if anyone's still interested; Digital Anarchy makes a Photoshop plugin (is compatible w/earlier versions of PSP) that's quite good. Cheers all..