Photographers love the way Corel® Painter™ lets them give a handpainted look to a photo, but it can take some time if you choose to paint in all the brush strokes by hand. As a workaround, some photographers use filters in other programs to achieve their painterly effects, but the results of using filters are often easily recognizable and detract from the image. So, is there a way to get a painterly look quickly in Corel Painter? The answer is yes! By knowing a few art concepts, and a few Corel Painter tools, you can easily give a photograph a handpainted look with minimal effort. This tutorial shows you how.

I took this photo in Fort Worth, Texas, during an Artistry Retreat I was holding in the nearby town of Denton.

I used the photo to create this painting with Corel Painter.

With the photo open in Corel Painter, I chose File > Clone. I next chose File > Save As to save the clone with a filename. I painted right on the photo, but by cloning, I had the original intact if I needed it, plus I could restore elements later with brush variants in the Cloners category.

Next, I wanted to simplify the image. One difference between a painting and a photo is that a painting has less detail. To simplify the image, I chose Effects > Tonal Control > Posterize. I typed in 6 to specify the number of colors, and I clicked OK. The image now had fewer colors.

Next, I added brush strokes to the entire image, using the Auto Van Gogh brush variant. I needed to set up the brush variant a little differently from the default settings, which have saturated brush strokes going in various directions. I wanted light brush strokes going in the same direction. First, I chose the Auto Van Gogh variant from the Artists brush category. I then made the following adjustments: I chose Window > Brush Controls > Angle and raised the Squeeze slider setting slightly to make the strokes wider. I also lowered the Ang Range and Ang Step slider settings to reduce the number of stroke directions. (The direction in which the strokes go is represented by an oval, and you can adjust the direction by moving the Angle slider.) Next, I chose Window > Brush Controls > Color Variability and lowered the number of different colors (H for hues) in the strokes, lowered the number of values (V), and increased the number of saturations (S). On the property bar, I raised the Size slider setting and lowered the Opacity slider setting. I also lowered the Resat slider setting so that the brush strokes would have less color, and I raised the Bleed slider setting so that the brush strokes would pick up more of the underlying image. I saved all of these changes as a new variant by choosing Brush selector > Save Variant. I named my variant "tutorial12," but you can use any name you want. The variant was now listed in the Variants pop-up menu. Then, after the brush was set up, I chose Effects > Esoterica > Auto Van Gogh. You can see the settings and the result of using the Auto Van Gogh effect in the image.

Next, I used the lasso to select the main figures. I did not need to do a precise selection—I knew I could fix it later. After saving the selection (Select > Save Selection), I moved the Angle slider so that the strokes would go in a different direction, and then I lowered the Size slider setting so that they strokes would be smaller. I again chose Auto Van Gogh from the Effects > Esoterica submenu. To make the cowboy's face clearer, I lowered the Size slider setting and painted some strokes by hand with the Auto Van Gogh brush variant. I then painted the eyes with the Soft Cloner variant from the Cloners category.

At this point, I adjusted the tones (see below). The "before" image is on the left, and the "after" image is on the right. They might look the same at first glance, but notice that the tree in the background is darker, and the woman's hair and the horse are lighter, in the image on the right. I gradually made the figures lighter, and the background darker so that the figures became the clear subject, or focal point, which is defined as the area of greatest contrast between light and dark. With the previously saved selection activated, I lightened the figures by choosing Effects > Tonal Control > Adjust Colors and raising the Value slider setting. I then closed the dialog box and inverted the selection (Select > Invert). Next, I chose Adjust Colors again and lowered the Value slider setting to darken the background.

While I had the background selected, I decided to rough it up a little to give it more of a handpainted look. I chose the Coarse Brush Mover variant from the Distortion brush category and then clicked the menu arrow on the Brush Selector bar and chose Record Stroke from the pop-up menu. I painted a stroke and then chose Auto Playback from the Brush Selector pop-up menu. I let the brush strokes proceed for a while and then stopped them by clicking in the image.

Next, I started to paint in details. To bring in color from the original photo, I clicked the rubber stamp in the Colors palette and painted in shadows with the Soft Cloner variant from the Cloners category, and with the Sharp Chalk variant from the Chalk category. I left many of the areas soft to make the image look painted, but brought in shadows—for instance, in the dark areas of the hair, under the sleeve, under the girl's chin, and on the handbag. The following shows the "before" image on the left and the "after" image on the right.

From this point on, most of my work consisted of touching up the image. You can see in the image on the right that the area around the horse is filled in, the sky is bluer, and the detail on the little girl in the lower right is more filled in. Using the Square Chalk variant from the Chalk category, I held down Option/Alt (Mac OS/Windows) and then clicked on colors adjacent to where I wanted to paint. I then painted around the horse and in the little girl's hair and around her to bring in some detail. I used the Soft Cloner variant from the Cloners category to paint her glasses and ponytail clip from the photo. To make the entire background darker, I painted it with a blue-green, using the New Simple Water variant from the Digital Watercolor category, with a high setting for Size and a low setting for Opacity on the property bar. I chose blue-green because on the color wheel, it was the complement, or opposite, of red-orange, which was the predominant color in the foreground.

I wasn't yet happy with the tones—I still wanted the foreground to be lighter and the background to be darker—so I did one last fix on the background. With the background selection activated, and blue-green still the current color in the Colors palette, I chose Effects > Surface Control > Color Overlay. I chose Image Luminance from the Using pop-up menu, kept the Dye Concentration option enabled, and clicked OK. The background now had more blue-green tint, and it looked right to me. I deselected the background selection by pressing Command + D (Mac OS) or Ctrl + D (Windows).

As a last step, I added paper texture over the whole image by clicking Effects > Surface Control > Apply Surface Texture. I chose Image Luminance from the Using pop-up menu, reduced the slider settings for Softness, Amount, and Shine for a more subtle effect, and clicked the 1 o'clock position in the Light Direction radio dial. Then, I applied the effect by clicking OK.

Here are some details of the final image:

By painting automatically with Corel Painter, you can speed up the process while still creating a unique work of art that doesn't look like it was done with a filter.

Artist, author, photographer, and Painter Master Karen Sperling wrote the manuals for the first several versions of Painter. She has authored several books on Painter, has had many Painter tutorials published in magazines, and has taught Painter to artists and photographers at movie companies, design firms, universities, and professional photography organizations. She currently publishes Artistry Corel Painter tutorials and the Artistry Tips and Tricks newsletter, and she leads Artistry Corel Painter Retreats. She paints commissioned portraits, and her Painter art has been displayed in several group shows. To see the images that Karen has created with Corel Painter, and for information about her tutorials and classes, visit www.artistrymag.com.