Hello Everyone! In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make this Vector Art Effect in photoshop. After following this tutorial, you will create your own PSD file & You will use it to re-apply the same effect on any new image with a SINGLE CLICK! Also, you'll learn an easy trick to convert this raster effect into a pure vector like that! Please LIKE the video and let's get started! Step 1. Create the Vector Art Effect. Let's start be creating a New Document. Set Width to 4500px, Height to 3000px, with 300 Resolution, and RGB color mode, then click Create. Now go to File> Place Embedded to import your image. Double-click your image to import it. Resize it, and center it to the middle like that. Now if you zoom out, and press CTRL+T you'll find that your image is bigger than the document itself. And this will give you a wrong positioning results in the 3rd step! So I want to remove these extra areas.
just make a selection around your document with CTRL+A. And with your layer selected, press CTRL+J to make a copy with the same document dimensions. Delete the old layer and right-click the new one to Convert it to a Smart Object. Now select your layer, then go to Filter> Sharpen> and choose the "Unsharp Mask" filter. Change Amount to 250%, Radius to 6Px, and Threshold to 15. This will increase the sharpness of your image like that! Click OK! ..... And as you can see, since we are working with smart object, all filters will be applied as smart filter like that. Select your layer again, and let's go to Filter> Stylize> Oil Paint. If your oil paint filter is missing or doesn't work, please check this video description. This will add a soft oil paint effect to your image like that. Change it to 5, 3, 0.1, 0, and uncheck Lighting. then click OK. Now lets go to Filter> and open the Filter Gallery Under the "Artistic" folder, choose the "Cutout" filter. Change it to 8, 5, and 1 And this will separate the skin tone to different levels like that. Now click OK. Click on this little icon to change the filter's Opacity. Decrease Opacity to 50% and click OK. Again with you layer selected, go and apply the Surface Blur filter from here. This filter will smooth the skin and wipe away most unnecessary details. Just Change its Radius to 25, and Threshold to 10. then click OK. Let's apply the "Unsharp Mask" filter again Change it to 80, 6, and 0. then click OK. Now point over the "Filter gallery" filter, Hold the ALT key, and Click&Drag it to the top to duplicate it like that. Now the filter is duplicated! Finally, let's apply the Smart Sharpen filter. Change it to 100, 1.5, and 0. then click OK. And here is the final Result! Now let's make a color correction layer, and I will explain its function in the 3rd step. First, change the layer's name to "Effect". And press CTRL+J to duplicate it like that. Right-click the smart filters of the duplicated layer to clear them. Rename it >> "Correct Colors" Then right-click it and choose "Create a Clipping Mask". Finally, with your layer selected, go and apply the Gaussian Blur filter from here. Set radius to 7 or 8 Pixels, then click OK. Change its blending mode to "Color", and now let's move on to the next step! Step 2. Replace The Background To remove this background, we need to open the smart object and remove it from there. just double-click on the smart object's thumbnail to open it. And to remove the background, just select your layer, and go and pick any selection tool. You can use the quick selection tool and make a selection around your object like that. But if you have a newer version of photoshop, you can use this "Object Selection Tool" Just click on this "Select Subject" button, and photoshop will automatically do the selection for you. Then go and create a layer mask from your selection and this will hide the background like that! Finally, press CTRL+S to update the smart object. Get back to your main document, and the background is now removed! Let's select the background layer, then go to File> Place Embedded to import one of these decorative shapes You'll find their download links in the video description under Tutorial Assets. Select the shape you want, and click Place. Adjust its position then press ENTER. Double-click the layer itself to open its layer styles. Select "Color Overlay", and you can change the color as you want from here. Pick the color you like, then click OK. Finally, let's add a levels layer at the top. Just select the top layer and add a Levels layer above it. This levels layer will be used to adjust the final output Brightness & Contrast. First, let's save the project as a PSD file for any future use. Make sure that the file type is "PSD", then click Save. Now let's update this image with a single click. Just double-click on the smart object's thumbnail to open it. Once you're inside the smart object, go and import your new image from here. Select your image then click Place. Adjust its size and position then press ENTER. And with your layer selected, make a selection around your subject as previous. Create a mask to remove the background Hide the other layer, then press CTRL+S to update your effect. Get back to your main document and here is the result! But if you zoom-in, you may see this mis-colored areas. And to fix them, just select The "Correct colors" layer and Unhide it. And that's why we made it in step 1. You can import another shape for the background from here. Also, you can control Brightness & Contrast by adjusting the Levels layer. And that's it!
You can use the final effect as it is. or just vectorize it as will be mentioned in the next 2 steps. Optional Step. Convert the Final Result to a REAL Vector. These next 2 steps are optional! Follow them if you want to convert your final result into a vector. I've just updated the effect image to show you more examples. through this step, I want to convert this final result to a pure vector. I will use a simple tool in Illustrator, then I will explain how to easily export it as a vector from there to Photoshop. I will hide this shape layer for now, and export the image only from here. Now open Illustrator, and open the image you saved. And from "Window"> open the Image Trace panel. Change the preset to "Low Fidelity Photo". Click OK, and wait a little bit! Set the number of colors to a low number like 10 or 9. And Finally, Click on this "Expand" button to convert it to a vector. Now your image is fully vectorized, And If you want to export it to Photoshop just follow the next step! Optional Step. Export the vector from Illustrator to Photoshop First You'll need to make a selection around your vector object like that Then press CTRL+C to copy it. Open photoshop and Create a new document. Now press CTRL+V to Paste it there. This "Paste" function used to have only these 4 methods. But recently in photoshop CC2022, they added the "Layers" option to paste the vector from Illustrator to Photoshop as it is! And to get this feature, you must upgrade your photoshop to CC2022 (V23.0 or above). Just select the "Layers" option , then click OK. As you can see, the vector is totally pasted in photoshop with its all shape layers. If you pick the direct selection tool, you'll see the anchor points of each shape layer like that. Also, You can double-click any layer's thumbnail to change its color. Or edit it with the pen tool if you want! But If you zoom-in you may see pixels like that. That's because photoshop is pixel-based software. and by scaling up your document to any large dimensions, you won't definitely see any loss in quality! Let's change it to 20000 pixels, and that is a huge number!!! Zoom in and let's see the difference. This is the PNG raster layer, and it's very pixelated and blurry!
let's hide it to see the vector group below it! Look how sharp & detailed this is! THAT'S COOL!! Please LIKE the video and SUBSCRIBE for more free tutorials! Thanks for Watching!
