Photoshop gurus, help needed!

[Mike Teezie]

I have a normal digital snapshot of my girlfriend and me that I would really like to make looks like this:

What would be the best possible way to get this done in PS?

 

[jelloshotsrule]

well i certainly don't know the best possible way... but if you want it to be "exactly" like that... first i'd select what you want to be the background, and make it the solid color... and cut out the inverse of that selection... this should be the top layer.

then on a layer under that, mess around with the contrast. i'd think you'd want to pump it up pretty high... then throw a filter on there. the one i tried was "artistic->cutout" and i messed with some of the settings and got it looking ok

i think there's a way to basically say "use two colors only" and apply that, but i don't know what exactly that is...

i'm sure smarter folks will come along and help, but for now, that should be somewhat of a start... always use layers so you have the original fully in tact within the file and can always duplicate that layer to play around with various options...

let us see the finished result!

 

[idkew]

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule

i think there's a way to basically say "use two colors only" and apply that, but i don't know what exactly that is...

you might be thinking of a duotone.

to make a duotone, first make your document greyscale (image->mode->greyscale).

then in image->mode select a Duotone. In the popup window Select type->duotone. Then select your two colors, mess with their levels to get what you want.

 

[Marc the Mac]

Try the 'posterize' command you can set the number of colours or grey tones 2 will give you just black and white then numbers higher than than will add other flat tones - gives an interesting effect.

 

[PixelFactory]

Here ya go.

1 Change the image to greyscale
2 Use the threshold command under image>adjustments
3 move the slider till your happy.
4 To smooth out the jaggies use the Dust and scratches filter and move the radius up to about 2 or 3 with the threshold at zero.

edit: this type of manipulation will require a good source image.

 

[PixelFactory]

Here is a quick test using the steps I described above.

 

[jelloshotsrule]

ahh yes, that works... although it doesn't seem to get all that much better results than what i did initially... but i think that's what i was thinking of

so i guess this makes me really wonder how they got this look on the ipod ads, with moving images... hm

 

[Mike Teezie]

Thanks everybody for the help.

I got the pic looking cool, however, I dont know now if I want to use it as I originally intended.

See, I drew this for my girlfriend for one of her VDay presents, and was thinking of drawing our faces into the center of the main flower in the style described above:

I don't know if it would "fit" the overall feel and look of the drawing.

What do you guys/gals think?

 

[jelloshotsrule]

badass drawing man

so you're talking about maybe drawing the resulting photoshopped image onto that other drawing?

if that's the case, i'd suggest (if you have the time/means... i realize tomorrow's the day)... scan your drawing in, and then put the PS image over it... so you can see if it fits. you don't want to screw up your awesome drawing by drawing the other thing on top of it and having it look bad

but, it seems like a cool idea... let us know

 

[Mike Teezie]

Jello - yeah, thats what I meant. Thanks for the compliment too, man.

I think I'm going to leave it blank, without the faces. The drawing seems to need that negative space in the center of the flower so your eye can focus on something. Otherwise your eyes just go fuzzy because there's so much ink on going on there.

I appreciate all the help everybody, really!

 

[Sparky's]

Wooooow, super flashback! Man that was some nice drawing!
Some of the Sixties are starting to come back now! I can remember sitting in class and doodling stuff just like that.

>grad, summer '69
>drafted same year
For sooo long I've been trying to figure out how I got here!

Nice Job, Sparky

P.S. all the answers sounded great, I couldn't for some reason view the original post photo so I can't really ad to the comments, but I have been using Photoshop since v2.0 back in '89, and what the others said is cool.