Got a quick Photoshop CS3 and up tutorial, Highcontrast Paint Effect. This effect uses 1 smart object, 3 filters and 1 adjustment layer. I’d rate this around beginners to intermediate, because a lot the process is straight but because the effect is different from resolution to resolution that the numbers must be altered to look, as well as knowledge of the basic layout of the Photoshop interface
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First start with a photo. I went to Stock.xchng and got an image of a road work sign. Here’s the link to the image. The image is 2608 x 1952, so it’s quite large, as a resolution (res) the numbers I use will higher that if the image is 800 x 600.
After moving the image in to Photoshop. Right (ctrl) click on the layer and convert to smart object. Now that the layer is a smart object it will use smart filters. So go up to the filter menu and select Brush Strokes then Spatter. If using a high res image then you’ll want to select numbers around mine, if not and it’s smaller use less Spray Radius (10-15) but leave the smoothness at 1. |

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Press ok to save filter. Now to tweak it a bit. To do this double click on the sliders icon, to bring up the Blending Options if the Fliter. |
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Once in the dialog box, change the blending mode from normal to darker color. That will only show the pixels of the spatter that are darker then the pixel of the original image below it. Then drop the opacity to 20 in order to lessen the effect. Moving on to the next filter, go back to the filter menu in the Brush Strokes category and select Angled Strokes. |

Angled Strokes is the filter that give the brushed on look to the eventually final project. Once again the numbers in this and the next filter WILL vary from image to image. It is my ideals that you could follow the tutorial all the way through but why? When the tutorial is not going anywhere. Photoshop is a creative medium in which creativity is limited by the author not the teacher. With that come the next filter and the setting I used. Unless the goal of the image is to be unrecognizable I suggest using a low Stroke Width & Pressure, however Contrast is yours to play with.

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Hue/Saturation then increase the saturation all the way up and drop the lightness down a few. Then you done, or not few free to continue playing with it. |





