Photoshop Tutorial - Painting Effect

1

Begin with a Photo.

If you like, you can right click on this image and use it. Bear in mind that the effect will appear different on images of different sizes. A larger image will produce finer lines.

The shadows are plugged up in this image so we will fix that right away.

2

If you have Photoshop CS or Photoshop Elements 3 Choose image>Adjustments>Shadow Highlight 
Move the amount slider as high as it will go. The image may look a little too bright in places but that doesn't matter.

If you are using Photoshop 7 or less, choose the curves or levels setting to brighten the image. 

3

Choose Filter>Stylize>Find Edges

All the edges will now become outlined. The color has gone a bit funky though. We'll fix that and finish the effect in the nex step.

4

Choose Edit>Fade Find Edges (This option will only be avaliable at this point, if you do anything else between Find Edges andd Fade, you won't be able to do this)

Change the blending mode to Luminosity. This will restore the colors (Don't close the dialog yet)

5

Here we have the image so far, with the original colors restored.

We will now blend this image with the original to get the result.

6

Reduce the Opacity slider until you are happy with the result. I used 33 for this image.

Click ok to apply

There you have it, in 3 easy steps we have created a classic.

Have fun with this and don't forget to check out all the cool tricks on myPhotoshop Secrets For Digital PhotographersVideo!