Turn photo into a comic with Photoshop

I this Photoshop tutorial we are going to use some filters and effects to turn a random photo into a comic like looking image.

Open a picture you want to turn into a comic.

Press Ctrl + J to duplicate the layer.

In the menu click Filter, Blur and choose Surface Blur...

Set the radius to about 5 pixels and Threshold to 15 levels.

Click OK.

In the menu click Filter, Texture and choose Grain...

Set the Intesity to 0 Contrast to 50 and Speckle for Grain Type.

Click OK.

Now go to CHANNELS and have only Red channel selected (see picture).

In the menu click Select and choose Load Selection...

Choose the same settings as I did and click OK.

Your Document file is of course going to be something else as my goggles1.jpg file.

In the menu click Filter, Pixelate and choose Color Halftone...

Enter same settings as I did and click OK.

If you have a big picture then you should choose the bigger Max. Radius. My picture dimensions are 800x600 pixels that's why I chose 4.

Now select the Green channel (step 4) and repeat the steps 5 and 6, then select the Blue channel and repeat the steps 5 and 6.

Press Ctrl + D to deselect the selecion.

Choose the original layer.

Press Ctrl + J to duplicate the layer.

Click and drag the duplicated layer to the top of the layers (see picture).

In the menu click Filter, Blur and choose Surface Blur...

Set the Radius to 5 pixels and Threshold to 16 levels.

Click OK.

In the menu click Filter, Blur and choose Smart Blur...

Choose the same settings as I did and click OK.

Press Ctrl + I to invert the colors.

In the menu click Filter, Blur and choose Gaussian Blur...

Set the Radius to 1 pixels and click OK.

Press Ctrl + L choose the same settings as I did and click OK.

Set the Blending Mode to Multiply.

And that's it!

Close up for a better perception of the effect.

Click here for the lesson where you can achieve a similar effect using Photoshop action Comics by JennyW.