Tuesday, November 25, 2008

A Coloring Book for Jack

As part of the hand-made Christmas, I'm making our little nephew, Jack, a coloring book from pictures we've taken throughout the year. Here are a few I've created so far. (See below for a quick how-to.)

Scott thought these might be too difficult for a 3 year old, but I thought Jack could make what he wanted of them and doesn't have to stay inside every line. Are they too tough?! Any thoughts...

By the way, if you know Jack, don't tell him about this. ;)

Indiana State Museum

Wrigley Field

A duck on the lake

A random barn

How-to (with a disclaimer):

Bring the picture into Photoshop. Select Filter-->Sketch-->Stamp. Inside the Stamp controls, turn the smoothness all the way down (1), then adjust the Light/Dark Balance until the picture has desirable detail. Some pictures worked better than others and there is no perfect Balance that works for all pictures. I also found it helpful to adjust the contrast before beginning the Filter work for some pictures with many shades of similar colors.

The fine print disclaimer: I used Photoshop Elements and am in no an expert or even an advanced user, I just play with settings until I get the effect I want, so this is only the way I did it. As always, I'd love to hear others ways to achieve the effect too!

2 comments:

Ashley said...

um...these are incredible! what a great idea...i'm already thinking of ways to copy!

Sara said...

same here, ash! this is brillant. way to make a hand made gift even more personal by including your own photos. it's really cool that home made gifts are making a comeback. i'll ride that train!