If you hang a lot of photos in your home, the decor may start to get boring after a while. You can shake things up a bit by altering the appearance of your photos, so that they resemble art prints. Creating art-like prints from your photographs can be done using the filters available in graphic design programs, like Photoshop. Once you have altered your photos, you can print them so that they look like a poster or a painting.
Instructions
1. Open Photoshop or a similar graphics program on your computer. Go to the "File" menu, click "Open" and browse for a photo that you would like to turn into an art print on the computer's hard drive. When you locate the photo, click on the file name and press the "Open" button to open the image in Photoshop.
2. Crop the image so that it cuts out any distracting objects in the background and has a more in attention-grabbing look. To crop, select the "Crop Tool" from the toolbar, left-click on the photo and hold the button down while dragging a box around the part of the photo that you want to use. Release the button on the mouse to make the box appear and click on the "Crop Tool" on the toolbar again. Click the "Crop" button in the confirmation popup that appears.
3. Change the lighting of the photo by using Photoshop's lighting tools. The lighting tools are found under the "Image" menu and "Adjustments." There are numerous lighting tools available, such as "Brightness/Contrast," "Shadow/Highlight" and "Exposure." These tools work in the same basic way. By changing the levels, you can turn the lighting level of the image up or down.
4. Open the Photoshop "Filters" features to use filters to give the image an artistic appearance. To get to the filters, go to the "Filter" menu, hover over "Artistic" and choose any filter from the list of options. Once inside the "Filters" window, you will be able to choose any of the "Artistic" filters.
5. Try out filters on your photograph until you find one that gives the photo the look that you are trying to achieve. To view what a filter does to the photograph, click on the name of the filter in the filter pane. The photo in the left picture pane will change accordingly.
6. Adjust the size of the brush strokes, the level of texture and other aspects of the filter in the right hand pane of the filter window. Monitor the changes to the photo in the left pane. Once you have made your selections, click "OK" for the filter to take effect and to return to the main screen of Photoshop.
7. Save the altered photo as a new picture file. Go to the "File" menu and select "Save as." Select a folder for the file to save in, enter a name for the file and click "Save."
8. Print the altered photo on high-quality gloss paper or have the photo printed onto canvas. High-quality gloss paper will give the image a fine art poster appearance, while canvas prints mimic paintings.
