Filter for "watercolor" effect

[dddarchviz]

Hi, I'm still new to PSP x5. I'm looking around for a filter to apply that gives a watercolor effect such as can be made to work in PS Elements. I really like the way Elements handles it but would prefer to do it all in PSP. Are there such things a plugins for PSP that would work like that? Am I not understanding what is here in PSP that would work like that?

The attached shows what I'd like to accomplish.

Thanks again,
dddarchviz

[photodrawken]

I haven't found a "one click" filter or plugin to create a watercolour effect, but see if these few simple steps gives you what you want. (All images at 75%)

Here's the original:

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1. Duplicate the background layer.
2. On that duplicated layer, use Effects...Edge Effects...Find All:

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3. Apply an Adjust...Brightness Contrast...Threshold to the found edges layer, adjusting the threshold value to get a nice rendering of the edges:

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4. Change the blend mode of that edge layer to "Multiply":

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5. Finesse the bottom colour image to get as much of a blurred and simplified effect as you wish. In this example, I applied the Effects...Edge Effects...Erode, then an Adjust...Blur...Gaussian blur, and finally the KPT Collection's Pyramid Paint:

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[LeviFiction]

In addition to that excellent example

PSP comes with two scripts "Watercolor" and "Wet Watercolor" that may or may not offer a decent result for you. Honestly the Wet Watercolor doesn't look very good in my opinion.

Both of these scripts use the 'Brush Strokes" Art Media effect found under the Effects menu. As well as one or two extra commands.

If you're not familiar with scripts, they're pretty easy. First you'll want to get the Script Toolbar.

View -> Toolbars -> Script

This toolbar includes a drop-down box for selecting the script that you want to use. And a big blue play button for running the script. It's seriously as easy as picking a script and running it.

[photodrawken]

LeviFiction,

Thanks for reminding me about the scripts. I always forget about them....

[dddarchviz]

Thanks a lot, pretty close but there are some distractions still.

Best
AV

[Kathy_9]

Just for fun I took the original of the image posted and did a comparison of the watercolor script in PSPX5 and the watercolor effect in PSE9. To my eye the PSE9 version appears to have rougher brush strokes that give it a bumpy look so if you like that look you can achieve it simply by adding a texture in PSP. (Effects -> Texture Effects -> Texture).

Here's PSPX5

Click for larger view

And, here's the PSE9 version

Click for larger view

[LindaSue]

I got results identical to your PSPX5 version with PSP8 and PSP9, Kathy.

[Kathy_9]

I'm guessing it's the same watercolor script in all versions.

Just to be clear the second image was not done with PSP9; it was done with PSE9 (Photoshop Elements 9).

[photodrawken]

Yep, there's no denying that PSP and PSE each have unique features that can't (or only with some difficulty can) be duplicated in the other program. PSE is parrticularly strong in reducing the number of colours and in layer effects/styles.

However (in the spirit of making lemonade from lemons ), one advantage of splitting the line art and colour background into separate layers in PSP is that each can be independently modified to achieve various effects.

Here I simplified the colour image using Adjust...Add Remove Noise...Automatic Small Scratch Removal (twice) before finding the edges. Who'd have thought?


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[photodrawken]

Aaarrrgggghhh! I don't know what it is, but this watercolour thing has got to me....

1. Apply an Adjust...Add Remove Noise...Edge Preserving Smooth to the image:

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2. Duplicate that smoothed layer and apply an Effects...Edge Effects...High Pass:

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3. Change the blend mode of the High Pass layer to "Overlay":

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4. Duplicate the original smoothed colour layer and move the duplicate to the top of the stack.

5. To that new duplicated layer apply an Effects...Edge Effects...Find All.

6. Use an Adjust...Brightness and Contrast...Levels adjustment to that Find All layer:

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7. Change the blend mode of the Find All layer to "Multiply":

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Stop me before I watercolour again!

[LindaSue]

I'm guessing it's the same watercolor script in all versions.

Just to be clear the second image was not done with PSP9; it was done with PSE9 (Photoshop Elements 9).

I see that now. Oops! I think that the PSP version looks more like a real watercolor painting.

[Kathy_9]

I see that now. Oops! I think that the PSP version looks more like a real watercolor painting.

The PSP version is my preference too.

[hartpaul]

A lot of complex operations there. I remembered seeing one in Irfanview. Image>Effects> Effects Browser> Oil Painting. You have a slider that goes from 0 to 255. A selection of results gave:

[photodrawken]

Yes, XnView also has an "Oil Painting" effect.

After a lot of experimenting, what I've found is that there's one important difference between an effect that looks like an oil painting and one that looks like a watercolour painting -- the brightness of the colour image. Applying a Histogram adjustment to lighten the colours is key.

That's especially important with images having large areas of the same colour, such as portraits or macro photos of roses, e.g.

Here's what I mean: The original (at 75%):

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The interim result, which looks as much like an oil painting as anything else:

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After applying the "Find All" edges effect and a Histogram adjustment layer to significantly lighten the colours, the image reads much more like a watercolour painting:

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The other thing I've found is that if the original image contains a lot of small areas of different colours, it's very easy to get a "watercolour" effect. For example, here's an image similar to the example given by the OP:

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After modifying it and lightening the colour image:

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