Photoshop Tutorial: How to Turn Your Photos into Clip Art

A Fun and Easy Tutorial

One common form a digital art is what many people call “clip art”. But what many people do not know is that you do not need to use clip art that is already on your computer, now you can make your own clip art. Yes, you can make your own clip art. It is easy too because you can make it straight from your own images or photographs. So in this tutorial, you will learn to do just that. This tutorial is perfect for Photoshop beginners or even advanced users.

To begin with, you will need to find a photo to work with. As always, you can use your own photos to work with, or you can find one online for free. There are tons of free photos online at stock image sites such as www.sxc.hu or www.istockphoto.com. So once you have found the image, open up your version of Adobe Photoshop and get ready to turn your photo into clip art!

Step 1) The first step is saving the original image, which is definitely the most important step. Many times, people who are inexperienced in Photoshop, or computers in general, struggle with this step, but it is easy. To start, make sure you have opened up or copied and pasted the image on a blank canvas in Photoshop. Flatten the image by going to Layer> Flatten. Then to save it, go to File> Save As and name the document what ever you like. Now the image is saved and ready to be worked on.

Step 2) Next you need to apply the Quick Mask. You will need to click on the Edit option located in the Quick Mask tool box on the Photoshop vertical tool bar. If you double click the icon, it will open a quick start menu which will make working with the Quick Mask much easier. The icon is located on the bottom right.

Step 3) Now, on the tool palette, you will need to choose black as the main foreground color. After this, select the brush tool. For the brush size, choose a 20-pixel hard brush. The mode should be set to Normal, with an Opacity at exactly 100%, this will make the painted section bold. Paint over the main subject in the photo. You can always reduce the brush size to paint over smaller details. I highly suggest this because your image will turn out much better!

Step 4) Then, go back to the standard mode on the tool palette box. There will now be a selection around the area you painted.

Step 5) Double click on the layer on the layer palette. Then click the icon highlighted in a yellowish color to add a new layer mask.

Step 6) On the tool bar click on create new fill or adjustment layer icon on your layers palette. Select a different threshold of about 90 and click OK.

Then you are done! And you have your clip art straight from your photo!

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