Painter How-to: Apply Special Effects to Photos

Lori Kerfoot

With Corel Painter IX, you can transform your digital photos in many ways-you can clone and trace them, and you can modify them with special effect filters. You can also alter them by using the Corel Painter brushes, which provide you with countless artistic possibilities.
The steps below show you how to apply two special effect filters to a digital photo to create a watercolor effect (see Figure 1). If you’re short on time or still honing your painting skills, this method lets you quickly and easily create a watercolor image.

Figure 1: The image on the left is the original photo. The image on the right shows a watercolor effect achieved by applying two special effect filters.

 
Create a Sketch from Your Photo
First, you’ll use the Sketch effect to convert the photo image to a pencil-sketch image (see Figure 2).
In Corel Painter, open the photo you want to use. From the menu bar, choose Effects > Surface Control > Sketch. In the Sketch dialog box, click OK to accept the default settings.
From the menu bar, choose Select > All to select the entire sketch. Choose Edit > Copy to copy the sketch to the clipboard.
Now that the sketch is on the clipboard, you can move to the next step quickly by choosing Edit > Undo twice, which returns you to the original photo image.

Figure 2: You can convert a photo image to a sketch by using the Sketch effect.

 
Create a Watercolor Effect
Now that the photo image is back to its original state, you’ll use the KPT Pyramid Paint filter to apply a watercolor effect.
From the menu bar, choose Effects > KPT Collection > KPT Pyramid Paint. In the KPT Pyramid Paint interface, click the check mark that appears in the bottom right corner to accept the default settings (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: The KPT Pyramid Paint effect lets you apply a watercolor effect to your image.

 
Combine the Sketch and Watercolor Layers
Next, you’ll combine the sketch and watercolor images in the Layers palette.
In the Corel Painter workspace, choose Edit > Paste to add the sketch layer. The sketch image appears as a layer in the Layers palette, and the watercolor image appears as the Canvas.
In the Layers palette, choose Gel from the Composite Method box to combine the sketch and the painting layers (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: You can combine the sketch and painting layers by using the Gel composite method (circled in red).

 
Blend and Add Detail with Brushes
You can use any number of brushes to blend colors or add detail to the image. For example, you can use the Just Add Water brush variant from the Blender brush category to soften color transitions on the canvas or to soften the pencil lines on the sketch layer.
Now that you know how to create a quick watercolor, you can experiment with different photos, adjust the settings for the Sketch and KPT Pyramid Painting special effect filters, and try out different brushes. Enjoy!