A special note about my "From a Photo" tutorials
When working with photos in PSP, the larger your image, the less effect the native PSP or outside filters will have on the image. With a larger image, you have to increase the numbers of the effect you're using in order for it to make a change on the image.
In order to keep the loading times of my tutorial pages as short as possible, I rarely work on anything that's more than 400px on the largest side (prior to framing)....occasionally I'll go up to 475, but that's about it. So, take that into account when you do any of my photo tuts if you want to achieve a similar result.
Here is an example of what we will be making.
In order to do this tutorial you will need the following items:
A. Paint Shop Pro - You can get it here:
B. The Crisscross.bmp. You probably installed this .bmp with PSP8 (look in the textures folder), but in case you didn't, I've made it available for you Here. Download the zip file, unzip it and place Crisscross.bmp in the following folder: My Documents>My PSP8 Files>Textures.
C. A suitable photograph. I got the one I used from this site..
Let's begin!
1. Open up the photograph you want to turn into a watercolor, duplicate it (Shift+D) and close the original. If your image is larger than what you want your finished painting to be, resize it now. (Image>Resize)
2. Go to Adjust>Brightness/Contrast>Clarify. Set the strength at "3".
3. Go to Adjust>Brightness/Contrast. Adjust the brightness up and the contrast down until you've muted the colors in your photo. The settings in the example below may not apply to your image. Adjust them as necessary. (Remember, watercolors are often quite pale.)
4. Go to Adjust>Focus>Soft Focus. The object is to slightly blur and soften the image. These are the settings I used.
5. Go to Effects>Art Media Effects>Brush Strokes. These are the settings I used.
Feel free to adjust them according to the image you're using. The object is to slightly distort the edges of the image in order to mimic painting.
6. Go to Effects>Edge Effects>Enhance more.
7. Go to Effects>Texture Effects>Texture. Click on the arrow over the texture window and find the Crisscross texture that you downloaded, then click on it to choose it. Change your other settings to match those in the screenshot.
Voila! You've created your watercolor.
Your Watercolor is finished. Sign it and add a frame of your choice, then send it to someone to admire.....<VBG>
Here's the result my friend "Mur" got on a photograph of a fern. I think the end result is very artistic.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
Please sign my guestbook so I'll know you were here. 
This tutorial is my own creation, any similarity to any other tutorial on the Internet is unintentional. It is copyrighted by me, *~Nightshadow~*, on June 20, 2005, and is not to be copied or reproduced in any way under penalty of law. Graphics lists, please e-mail me for permission to post my tutorials, especially because I would love to see the results :O)
NOTE: Any image you make using this tutorial is completely your own property.
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