We know that photography is an art, but sometimes it's fun to mix your mediums and add some cool art effects to your photographs. Here we'll look at How to Turn Your Photos into Art With Artistic Photoshop Effects.
In this tutorial, we'll take you through three top actions for Adobe Photoshop available from Envato Elements, where you can download unlimited resources on a simple monthly subscription.
1. Watercolor Photoshop Action
This action promises to create stunning watercolour images from your photographs.
This is the image I'll be using to demonstrate. It's a free stock image, so you can follow along with the same one. This grumpy doggo was begging me to be turned into a work of art:
Before You Start
Make sure your image is high resolution, in RGB mode and 8-bit. You'll also need to install an action and a brush for this effect.
Create a New Layer and Brush Your Subject
Next, create a new layer above your background and title it 'brush'. Paint over your subject in any colour.
Run the Action
Be prepared to wait a while when you run the action. When it finishes, you should have something that looks like this.
Make Adjustments
Well that looks pretty good, but we can adjust the layers to improve our effect.
Here, I've upped the contrast, dipped the background colour a bit to make it lighter, increased the black outline around the dog's features, turned on the inner sketch lines which add some white lines around features, and finally, added some blue.
A Watercolour Masterpooch
2. Artista — Mixed Media Art Photoshop Action
With plenty of variety, Artista is a great way to apply the same action and generate a multitude of possibilities.
To demonstrate this action, I'll be using this free stock image.
Before You Start
Make sure your image is high resolution, in RGB mode and 8-bit. You'll need to install this action.
Create a New Layer and Brush Your Subject
Next, create a new layer above your background and title it 'mask'. Paint over your subject in any colour.
Run the Action
This can take a long time, so be patient—you might even want to go make a cup of tea!
Make Adjustments
With this one, I turned down the contrast to bring back some detail, added some more drips, and masked out some of the effects around the face. You can also add way more drip effects, but I think in this case, less is more.
There's an option to add horizontal drips too, which would be great to use for things in motion, like a car, for example.
The Finished Image
3. Fibrum — Line Art Photoshop Action
If you fancy something a bit more modern and funky, try Fibrum, which promises a sci-fi style, outline effect.
I felt like this action needed a techy twist, so this is the image I'll be using to demonstrate. You can follow along by downloading the same image from Unsplash.
Before You Start
Make sure your image is high resolution, in RGB mode and 8-bit. You'll also need to install the action.
Create a New Layer and Brush Your Subject
Next, create a new layer above your background and title it 'mask'. Paint over your subject in any colour.
Run the Action
Be prepared to wait a while. When it finishes, you should have something that looks like this.
Make Adjustments
This looks okay but it's hard to see what it is in places. That's okay though, we can make adjustments.
First, lower the opacity of the grey background.
You can choose to add more lines, backgrounds or colour. I thought this might look fun with some colour.
The Finished Image
Or, if you prefer it without.
More Great Photoshop Actions and Effects
How to Make a Watercolor Effect in Photoshop Quickly
How to Add Cool Particle Effects in Photoshop With a Stylish PSD Action
100+ Super Awesome Adobe Photoshop Actions From Envato Elements
20 Best Photoshop Actions With Cool Art Effects for Portraits
