Watercolor Techniques in Photoshop

Digital watercolor effects can match the intense but transparent hues of traditional water color paint.aquarelle image by harmonie57 from Fotolia.com

Many people enjoy making watercolor paintings, but struggle with the unforgiving nature of the medium. If you make a mistake in traditional watercolor, there is no way to cover it up. Photoshop has many different brushes and preset filters that mimic the look of a water color painting. You can duplicate the transparent look that many artists seek, layer it on top of previous levels or even remove elements if you decide that they do not work well.

Watercolor Brush Paintings

Photoshop has useful watercolor brushes in its default brush menu. Open a new file in Photoshop; Choose the 800 X 600" preset option, and choose white for the background color. From the default brush selections, select "Watercolor Loaded Wet Flat Tip" and slide the "Master Diameter" to "200px". Choose a saturated light blue color from the "Color Picker" and sweep the stylus across the screen using light, diagonal strokes. Notice that where your lines overlap, the color intensifies.

After you finish painting the blue lines, change color selections and pick a bright saturated pink. Paint with this color in the opposite diagonal direction. Once you have painted 5 or 6 lines, copy the contents of your layer by choosing "Select" and "All" from the Menu bar and sub menu. Then choose "Edit" "Copy" and "Paste" to deposit your image on to a second layer.

Flip the image on the vertical and horizontal axis. Select "Image", "Adjust" and "Hue/Saturation" from the Menu bar and sub menus, then adjust the hue to "+20". Your second water color layer turns a warmer tint and interacts with the cooler first layer to create a dynamically colored image.

Open a digital landscape photograph in Photoshop. Turn it black and white by choosing "Image", "Adjust" and "Desaturate". Choose a rich blue for your brush from the "Color Picker". Run your stylus across the sky. Color your photograph with the subtle transparent water color layers. Use alternate layers of blue, then yellow rather than just painting land and trees green.

Photoshop has many specialty water color brushes. Start with a new photographic image. Load in the "Wet Media" brush set and choose "Drippy Water". Set the "Master Diameter" to "100px". Choose white as your foreground color. Stamp, rather than brush with your stylus. The photograph looks as if it has water blotches dropped on top of it.

Preset "Filters" add effects on top of existing images. The "Water Color" filter (located under the "Filter" and "Artistic" menus) turns any photograph in to an original art work. The "Water Color" preview window contains adjustable sliders for "Brush Detail", "Shadow Intensity" and "Texture" Experiment with different settings for each variable. "Brush Detail" may work better at a higher setting when you work with intricate images. "Shadow Intensity" is very sensitive. Keep the settings at a low level for all but extremely pale images.

Create a textured paper underneath your image with the "Sketch" filter and the "Water Paper" sub selection. Adjust the fiber size and intensity of the textured background until you are satisfied with the effect.