Making a coloring book from photos

[Doug Nelson]

This was the topic of one of our Challenges. We got a few submissions, with
varying degrees of success. Feel free to take a look, most have information
about how they were done.

[url]http://www.retouchpro.com/challenge/manipulation/challenge18/index.html[/url]

[Harold Morgan]

I'm still working on this myself, but so far it seems the first step is to
reduce the number of colors in the photos. Filter / Artistic / Cutout seems
to do a pretty good job here.

The second step seems best handled with a program called ImpressionX - it
will put a number to represent a color on a b/w rendition of the photo from
step one.

Like I said, this is a concept in progress. If you come up with something
better, please forward it along.

"Brian Bledsoe" <wee_ag@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2ccce300.-1@webx.la2eafNXanI...

> Is there a plug-in to create coloring book pages from photos? Or perhaps a

tutorial?

>
> If not, is there software that will do this?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Brian

[Burton Ogden]

Brian,

Wacom has instructions for doing this at:

<http://www.wacom.com/tips/tip.cfm?ID=10&category=Photoshop>

"Crayon by Number" software is a variation on the traditional Paint-by-Number pictures, but using crayons instead of oil paints or acrylic paints. It takes a photo and converts it into a "crayon-by-number" graphic.

<http://www.crayonbynumber.com/>

There are many programs, including Adobe's Streamline, that "vectorize" a bitmap by converting it into vector or line art, but they give disappointing results for use as coloring book pages because the lines aren't simple enough.

-- Burton -- (not associated with any mentioned vendor)

[Carl B. Johnson]

Brian

Adobe's Streamline will easily convert photos into line drawings, and it
is only $129.

Another quick method is to open a photo.
Duplicate the layer, then image>adjustments>desaturate the new layer.
Duplicate that layer.
Image>adjustments>Invert that layer.
Then in Blending Options to that layer choose linear dodge. The layer
turns all white, don't worry.
Then to that layer Filter>blur>gaussian blur, play with the settings to
get outlines... that may give you enough to play with depending on what
you started with.

I don't know who originally posted this method, but thanks, I use it often.

--
Carl B. Johnson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Respectibility in art is appalling.
[url]www.wuli.com[/url]