Make any Photo a Coloring Page with PSE

Don’t you love all those fun filters and effects that came with Photoshop Elements?  Some of them work wonderfully to give your photos just the right touch… while others left me scratching my head thinking “Ok that’s neat… but what the heck would I use it for?”. 

Well I will NEVER claim to be a PSE expert (or even a novice), but I will share fun little project ideas I stumble across along the learning way.    So here’s a quick idea for an easy holiday gift for those you know who are kids at heart.  Take photos of them and create a custom coloring book.  It’s very easy with just a few steps.

First, find the digital photo you want to use.  Look for one that the subject takes up pretty much the entire photo area, if there is too much going on in the background or in the details it won’t look quite right. 

Here’s one of Dixie:

Yes…. yes I dress my dog in a reindeer coat.  We don’t know her breed (we adopted her as a stray adult) and the shelter’s best guess was that she was a Saluki… which is a dog from Egypt… i.e. the desert… so I figure that she’s pretty cold in the snow.  Anyway, I digress….

Now, open the photo in PSE (I have version 5.0… I know…behind the times…Alan gets a new Playstation every five minutes and I’m stuck with old software).

Step 1:  Make sure the foreground color (the top box) you have selected is black, and the background color is white.  To change the color, click on the box and then click a color in the window that appears.

Step 2:  In the “Special Effects” or “Filter” menu at the top of your screen, find and click on “Photocopy”.  It’s under the “Sketch” category.  Then click “Apply”. 

Step 3:  It probably doesn’t look quite the way you want it too yet… so now you need to play with the “Detail” and “Darkness” ranges that will appear on the right when you apply the effect.  Just slide the arrows up and down until you get the look you want.  This is about right for me where the detail is set to “4″ and the darkness to “25″.

Hit “Ok”, and then you’re done!  You can even add text using the text tool to make it coloring book authentic.

Print out on card stock or regular typing paper, package with a big box of crayons and let the kid in you and those you love loose! 

Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by.  :)