How to Apply Cartoon Effects to Photos

It's been a long time since I last posted a photo editing tut — one year precisely. The main reason has been lack of time, lack of inspiration, and also lack of motivation — due to lack of feedback. Well, I'm addressing that today not because I felt I had to do it, but mostly because an opportunity occurred and I thought it would be nice to share my recent experiments with you. The following manipulation won't yield good results with all your pictures though — you may want to avoid dark and/or detailed images — and you will probably need to edit them all a lot after so as to get a clean fake hand-drawn output.

© Gunther Dillingen

Materials

Instructions

1. Load a copy of your original in GIMP and resize if necessary.

2. Enhance edges with Filters - Enhancement - Sharpen :

- Range = 3
- Quantity = 3,650
- Threshold = 0
- Crop = Adjust

3. Push b/w contrast with Colors - Exposure :

- Black level = 0,100
- Exposure = 0,435

4. Apply Filters - G'MIC-Qt - Artistic - Cartoon :

- Smoothness = 3,45
- Sharpening = 186
- Edge Threshold = 30
- Edge Thickness = 0,026
- Color Strength = 1,368
- Color Quantization = 256

5. Apply Filters - G'MIC-Qt - Colors - Color Balance with default settings.

6. Apply Filters - G'MIC-Qt - Colors - Color Presets :

- LUTs Pack = Creative Pack
- Preset = Crisp Warm
- Strength = 100
- Other settings left as default

7. Copy-past your chosen comic bubbles and sounds as new layers then adjust sizes and layout.

8. Add a new layer and using MyPaint 002 Frame Line brush, draw an irregular border around the picture. TIP: To draw a full line, click on your starting point and holding the Shift key, click again on the ending point, making sure there's a slight offset. Then fill up the offset.

NOTE: I have also changed the colour of the 'Boom' with a variety of filters from the Colors menu plus some cosmetic editing such as removing blue stains with saturation and exposure tweaks. If you wish to edit out the caption of bubbles, you may select the inside with freehand tool and fill up with the original colour, then enter your own text with the same font I have used (or any other).

© Edward O'Brien

 

For my second example using a portrait, after 'cartooning' my character (and editing out the output with various brushes), I removed the white background around him and outlined him with the pencil tool, completing with a drop shadow to create some depth. Finally, I added a cartoon city background I found on the web (I could also have 'cartooned' one) which I copy-pasted as a new layer below. After merging, I applied G'MIC - Colors - Color Blindness filter with Blindness Type = Deuteranomaly.

As always, it is not possible to give you any precise guidelines because every picture needs different settings (and some won't be 'cartoonable'). Also, it all depends on the style you wish to create. At any rate, I do hope it made you feel like trying and why not create a whole comic strip with your existing photos (or take new ones in view of creating a story). I must say I'm thrilled at the prospect. That is if time permits...

© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.

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She's Pfizer

Elle est Pfizer

She's got that glimmer in her eyes
Which gives her an air of superiority
That redness on top of her arm
Where a plaster used to be
There's clearly something special about her...
For me, she sure is Pfizer!

Every day I see her walk by
In the neighbourhood, unmasked
She kisses her neighbours
And doesn't wash her hands anymore
She's not afraid of the virus...
For me, she sure is Pfizer!

And I'm still living in the Middle Ages
With a mask over my face
So I cry out: “Jab me!
But labs are all overwhelmed
And there are delivery issues
So we make the best of what we've got...
With that yesterday I got my first dose
Of AstraZeneca at the vet's...1

And when she tilts a head to the side,
She picks up 5G frequencies
While all I get is a stiff neck
And can hardly tune in to Nostalgia FM
In a blink of an eye, she can call a cab...
For me, she sure is Pfizer!

She's able to follow Jean Castex's2
Most complex conferences
She can understand first hand
New certifications
Curfews, timeshifts...
For me, she sure is Pfizer!

And I won't get my second dose,
There's been a bit of a hiccup
From AstraZeneca.3
It is said that for people my age,
It can cause carnage.
So I'm unsure, don't know why...
I was already picturing myself in the world after
Whereas in reality it's thrombosis.

She's a master in teleportation,
She pays for her groceries with her forehead.
The only inconvenience
Is that she gets all the security alarms ringing.
She can understand the whole of Schopenhauer
For me, she sure is Pfizer!

And I feel restless like a lion in cage
At the end of its rope.
Inject me anything!!
Since I couldn't wait any longer,
I made an appointment with my garage
And was treated like a king!
From now on, I walk with an air of superiority
After my motor oil jab...

Endnotes

  1. ^ In France, vets have been requisitioned to vaccinate people.
  2. ^ Jean Castex is the actual French Prime Minister, infamous for his contradictory, kafkaesque sanitary measures which keep changing all the time, getting people utterly confused.
  3. ^ In France, like in many countries in Europe and worldwide, the AstraZeneca vaccine has been suspended due to severe side effects.

Original text by LES GOGUETTES translated from French by EY@EL
© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.

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Down in the Well

One lousy Christmas
For a jailed Easter,
And none of them catatonic bells
All glued to CNN,
In a mainstream coma,
Will ever ring the end of Lent.

Get your bets down,
The wheel is now going.
To hell or high heaven,
The die is cast.

Bafflegab
And iron masks,
Go astray
And hope to die.

Resist or conform
For better or for worse,
Mindfulness
Seals our fate.

Truth will mess you up.
Or set your free.
Faith or fear,
The choice is yours.

Where we sow light, we glow all!

© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.

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