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Preparation
There are plenty of great stock images to choose from Night Fate Stock of deviantArt. I’m using one of them for this tutorial.
Download Scenery image.
All rights of these resources belong to their respective owners.
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Step 1 – Applying Smart Blur
Create a new document with size 750×550 pixels. Open up the Scenery image, drag into the document and resize it so it fits nicely. Rename this layer as Landscape.
Duplicate Landscape layer. Rename the new layer as Blur Landscape.
Go to Filter > Blur > Smart Blur. Set the Radius to 10 and Threshold to 30.
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Step 2a – Applying Glowing Edges
Duplicate the Landscape layer again. Rename the new layer as Outlines. Drag the Outlines layer to be above Blur Landscape layer.
Go to Filter > Stylize > Glowing Edges. Set the Edge Width to 1, Edge Brightness to 12 and Smoothness to 15.
Go to Image > Adjustments > Invert. Then follow by Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.
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Step 2b – Applying Glowing Edges
Set the Blend Mode of Outlines layer to Multiply.
Set the Opacity of this layer to 80.
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Step 3 – Create Painting Layer
Duplicate the Blur Landscape layer. Rename this new layer as Painting.
Select the Painting layer and go to Image > Adjustments > Invert. Set the Blend Mode to Color Dodge.
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Step 4 – Paint with Dry Brush
Set the foreground color to #000000.
Select the Brush tool and open up the presets. Choose Dry Brush. Set the Opacity of this brush to 10%.
Paint briefly over the Painting layer and you will get the effect shown on the left.
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Step 5a – Applying Watercolor Effect
Select the Brush tool and open up the presets again. Click on the right pointing arrow and load Wet Media Brushes. Choose Watercolor Textured Surface Brush. Set the Opacity of this brush to 50%. Reduce the brush size to 15pt.
Zoom in and paint the water well on the Painting layer. Use short, random strokes that follow the shape of the water well.
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Step 5b – Applying Watercolor Effect
Increase the size of the brush to 100pt.
Use long strokes this time for the sky. Gradually build up the depth of color by painting over certain areas more than once.
To give an impression of real watercolor, it will be good to leave small areas of white here and there.
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Step 5c – Applying Watercolor Effect
Repeat the same method on Step 5b for the grasses.
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Step 5d – Applying Watercolor Effect
Reduce the brush size to 30pt.
Same thing here, paint short vertical strokes of grasses on the Painting layer.
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Step 6 – Apply Watercolor Filter
Duplicate the original Landscape layer. Rename this new layer as Details. Rearrange this Details layer to be the top-most layer.
Go to Filter > Artistics > Watercolor. Set the Brush Details to 12, Shadow Intensity to 0, Texture to 3.
Set the Blend Mode of this layer to Luminosity and Opacity to 25%.
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Optional
And we’re done! Hope you enjoy this tutorial!
I enhanced the depth and colors of the painting further with a Levels Adjustment Layer. The settings are 9, 1.07, 203.
Click here to view the final image.
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I am Johnson Koh, an Art Director based in Singapore. Founded 10Steps.SG with the purpose to share my experiments and interesting design news. Connect with me on LinkedIn. 
103 Comments | Write a Comment
This tutorial is really one of the best! Until now I already used it several times and the results are always just perfect!
Thanks for sharing!
This was VERY good! So easy and very helpful!
thank you so much
Really neat tutorial! I was looking for something to do to my photos…Cool stuff! I could see where a novice might get lost on this, but it’s still really well done and I think the results turn out good. Thanks for posting this!
Hi! This was a great tutorial. I bought some art in which the artist layered acrylic paint by hand over an actual photograph. Does anyone have any resources to teach me how to do that? Thanks.
:\ I really like all the effects of all your tutorials, but I can never get to then end of them, I always get halfway through & I set stuck on a step that isn’t explained well. In this case it was step 4.
I’m not a noob in CS4 or anything but I do need more spesific details.
I went over the paint layer with the white drymedia brush & nothing happened, at least nothing I could see.
Hi, i agree with you – i was stuck at step 4 because it was unclear to me where the dry brush was and which one exactly to use. I had to adapt and figure out something myself.
otherwise, great tutorial, thanks!
Yup I know what you mean. Took me a min to figure out but all you have to do is open the brushes palette as expected and choose ‘reset brushes’ and then ‘ok’ and the dry brush (size 39) will be there.
Thanks for a great tutorial btw Johnson. I’ve been looking for a good watercolour tut and this is the best I’ve seen.
thank you johnson! this tutorial made my day!
Freaking cool! Thanks so much for sharing!
Hi Buddy
looks very cool…. great and simple techniques to follow
easy to learn evev if u r not an artist… good keep it up
it was amazing…had a great time learning this! and i was so surprised by the result…this is definitely many times better than just using the filter in photoshop!
I can’t imagine how unique it was! Want to try doing this one.
Great tutorial, i wonder if I can do the same in gimp, since not everyone has a copy of PS, will go find out.
By the way, wanted to watch the video, how come it is removed
Great tutorial, 1st class.
This is a really great tutorial because its fast and easy but at the same time gives you a great deal of control as to how you want your final image to look.
You can really take advantage of your wacom tablet with this method!
Excellent!
I have tried many progs and techniques to get a realistic watercolour effect I like – and failed. Now, your tut has sorted that! Great. I’m really pleased with my rushed results – can only improve with more care/time spent. Thaanks!
wow….
i love it so much….
i want to create something like thiz…
Realistic! two thumbs up!
thx so much for the tutorial..i tried on hayden panettiere pic & here’s the result:
http://twitpic.com/oh1yl
thanks so very much for ur tutorial!
)
Great tutorial! Thanks!
Hi Johnson, I like your tutorial very much,but i keep getting lost, as i am a complete novice, is there any where i can find a complete step by step of this procedure? Many thanks. George
Hey great tutorial–short sweet and to the point. Cool effects. Have you ever tried painting with Corel Painter? What do you think?
Hi Barbara, yes I remember you
I have not tried this method on animals before. But I think it will still work well on close-up facial shots for the animals.
This is because many details are removed after applying the effect. So may not be very ideal for photos with animals in smaller size. Hope these are useful for you.
Hi Johnson, don’t know if you remember me but a few weeks ago I tried this method on an old barn and it worked beautiful. My question is, have you ever tried this method on other photo’s like animals(dog or cat) I didn’t know if you had or you have a another method for animals. Would you give me any tips? You seem to have so much knowledge in watercolor, thought I would ask you instead of searching hundreds of methods, know what I mean???
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Barbara(Barbee)
thanks for letting me make a video of this tutorial!
here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM6PuUUhXPw
more power to you!
Thanks Jean! Possible to pass me a link of the video after you are done? I can embed it here for others to view too!
nice tutorial! i love it!
btw, can i make a video of this tutorial? i’ll link u back.
Hi Barbara, you have a beautiful gallery I must say
I saw the image of the old barn you’ve made. That’s a great work!
This is one of the best Watercolor Painting Tutiorals I have ever come across, have tried many, not always good results.
Had a photo of an old barn taken in Mandarin Florida built in 1876 used this technique, and in my opinion turned out beautiful. If you like you can go to the website provided to view in my galleries.
Thank you for your time to put this together and for other’s to use it.
Barbee
Gorgeous superb thank you i was searched this one and finally u given me
I like a lot! Thank You
Hey, I found these tutorials to be very good and the bonus items are worth their weight in gold. It is not my site but soemone I know. Chgeck it out for yourself and see. Go to:
http://photoart-tutorials.com/index.html
@Chris: Thanks for the info
I do encounter similar problems like Emil. And what I did was to restart Photoshop 
@Ladynoe: Thanks for your compliment! Just went to check out your portfolio. It’s beautiful!
this is the most interesting tutorial i ever found. it looks very realistic. thank you Johnson
Perfect – fantastic. This has really helped bring to life a concept I’ve had – it’s gold to find tutorials that allow you to take good source photography and turn it into painterly styles. And this one provides so many places to personalize and get expressive with it. Thank-you very very much!
@emil: not sure if this helps, but the minute you have a few layers going, and a few different blend modes, a complex brush and a few filters, the load on your processor and RAM gets pretty heavy. I’ve had tutorials go belly-up just because my processor couldn’t take it. Lowering the overall dimensions of the image helps. Also, check your Image>>Mode: it needs to be 8-bit RGB (not 16bit) for many of the filters to work.
I tried to do this tutorial. I couldn’t even complete the First stage. Photoshop won’t allow me to do a Smart Blur or Glowing Edges.
Any suggestions to what can help?
You probably work under CMYK mode.
Go to Image>Mode and chose RGB, and you’ll be fine.
Superb very nice and easy to follow.
Nice effect thanks
I like a lot! Thank you for share your knowledge.
Hi yen, Thanks! I have been trying hard
Hi~ thanks so much for sharing tis tutorial!!!
it was amazing…had a great time learning this!
and i was so surprised by the result…this is definitely many times better than just using the filter in photoshop!
so basically I love this tut and its the only one I can do without someone sitting beside me explaining the whole thing.
ingenious!! the watrercolour effect is really realistic! nice job
very good.
thanks!
Hi Wick, I’m serious. You have done a fantastic job!!!
This tutorial is amazing! I’ve created something myself if you’re interested in seeing it
Visit my website and you’ll see it – bottom right.
Alternatively, just follow this link:
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/3037/sonic.jpg
I love it! Very helpful. Thanks!
this is interesting, i like ^^
I know what to put on my wall now anything i can make in photoshop that is. Very usefull tutorial for someone with the idea im talkin about
very cool tut:) thanks
Thanks a lot guys!
thanks~
Good job..Thanks..
Very useful, and properly explained. Thnx!
I see Your back – very good tutorial
)))
Hi Joyce, clearing off the white background is correct. What Step 4 does is to reveal the a faded lower layer.
Perhaps you can provide me with a screenshot of what you have got?
I got stuck on step 4, when I tried to paint well – it had no color – just cleared off what was already there. What did I do wrong? This is my first attempt at watercoloring.
Thanks so much guys!
This is the best watercolor effect tutorial that I’ve seen!
Great job. Thanks!
Nice man!
This could well come in handy! Good tutorial
Wspaniałay tutorial.Wielkie dzięki.
Ðвтору реÑпект! ÐапиÑано краÑиво!
beautiful tutorial- I tried it and it’s a great technique- thanks!
please video tutorial this
Fantastic effect! Definitely one of the best “artistic”-tutorials I’ve seen in a while! Thanks
This something different. I like the use of watercolor brush. Very realistic. Thanks.