Posterising an ImageLottie

IntroductionI’m going to demonstrate how to create a posterised effect from a simple photo, in a similar style to Eelco van den Berg’s work – often with a limited colour palette.

Step 1:Open the photo you’d like to edit.

• In the layers section, double click on the Background layer to ‘unlock’ and rename to something relevant – I’ve called mine ‘Jo Background Layer’. ADD SCREENSHOT

• From the Layer toolbar, select Duplicate.

• Use Cmd/Ctrl + L to bring up the Levels dialog, then use the middle slider to make the new layer a bit lighter, so the subject stands out better from the background.

✗ ✓ ✗

Step 1:

Step 2:• Now duplicate the ‘Jo Background Layer copy’ layer and name it ‘Contrast’.• Modify the contrast and brightness of your image. On mine I set the brightness to 25 and the contrast to 100.

Step 2:

Step 3:• Now duplicate the ‘Contrast’ layer and name it ‘Posterise’.• From the Image toolbar, Select Adjustments and then ‘Posterise’ with a Level of 4.

Step 3:✗ ✓ ✗

Step 4:• Now change the image resolution to 150dpi and the height

to a maximum of 25cm (this will make the subsequent illustrator file smaller.

• Now save the image (make sure it’s a PSD).

• Close the file and now open the PSD in Adobe Illustrator.

• A dialogue box will open. Click the ‘convert layers to objects’ option. Now all your layers are in Illustrator’s Layers panel.

Step 5:

Step 6:• On ‘Document Setup’ set the

page as A4 portrait (210mm x 297mm)

• Add a new layer and name it ‘Front’. This is the layer we are going to work in. Put this layer on top of your other layers. Lock the others.

Step 7:• In the Brushes panel, select New Brush. • Select New Calligraphic Brush and name it ‘Basic Brush’. Set angle at 0 and

size at 1pt

Step 7:• Trace over the image, following the

main shapes and blocks of colour.• It will look a bit messy but keep going

as it works in the end!• It’s up to you what level of detail you

go into. I have chosen to keep it quite abstract but you could add more facial features for a more realistic look.

Final Outcome

Final Outcome

Do you have any questions?