This is fun! After reading this tutorial on making cartoons from photos I tried to emulate his technique in the GIMP. The dialogs are slightly different but here’s what I did..
- Layer->Duplicate Layer
- Select the new layer, Filters->Edge-Detect->Edge, select Sobel, Amount should be 2.0, and Black should be checked.
- Invert the edge-mask layer, it’s in Layers->Colors->Invert
- Back in the Layers Dialog, change the Layer Mode to Divide
Play around with Layer mode settings, desaturate the top layer, blur or otherwise mess up the bottom layer. Endless fun can be had! Feel free to post links to your own creations in the comments below!
Later.. on advice I got rid of the portrait, I’ll upload another tomorrow!
40 replies on “Cartoonizing Photos With The GIMP”
heh, that’s very cool, wonder what it looks like when you try it with people / animals?
Good question, I added a portrait – it was originally b/w but it came out well I thought! I didn’t invert the edge-mask this time though.
This can get addictive! Completely agree with you on that! 🙂
good stuff.
[…]
Cartoonizing Photos With The GIMP Holy shit!!! This actually works! Tw […]
how do you set the layer mode to “divide”?
There’s a big “Mode” drop down box at the top of the layers dialog. Select the “divide” option 🙂
aaagh – i see it. i had the layer dock turned off.
Dialogs -> Create New Dock -> Layers Channels & Paths
you have used dodge layer mode not divide
I have try it, but couldnt do any similar version
[…] Donncha O Caoimh has a nice tutorial on how to create sketchy, cartoonlike images from digital photos using the GIMP. […]
That’s amazing… I’ve been looking for something like that and it actually works. Well, I’m using the “Grain merge” mode instead of “Divide” because it works the best for me.
Thank you.
This is a life saver…!
by Layers > Colors > Invert
you mean Filters > Colors > Value Invert??
well here are my steps
Layer > Duplicate Layer
Filter > Edge-Detect > Edge…
Filter > Colors > Value Invert
Layers > Mode > Value
dago, it’s supposed to be layer > colors > invert, not filter > colors > value invert.
Yeah.. looks good. The instructions dont follow the new Gimp layout, so… lol, thats why there are some people saying that the instructions aren’t exactly accurate.
This has a nice effect, btw, and its really hard to come by a good comic book / cartoon effect on the Gimp whereas its pretty simple on Photoshop..
I tried your tutorial on a photo of people .On my own photograph actually .But it doesnt look goodz . 🙁 My goal is to imitate the result of Cartoonized service ( http://cartoonized.net/cartoonme.php ) .More or less like the samples displayed on that page .
Anyone can help me ?
[…] You can play around with the mode to get different results. Found on: http://ocaoimh.ie/2004/10/01/cartoonizing-photos-with-the-gimp/ […]
Great thing, looks good. I’ve used multiplication instead, becomes more dark.
Thank you so much!!!
In my case I’ve found that I like more to leave in ‘normal’ the layer mode that you recommended to set on ‘divide’, it looks more sketchy.
After that I duplicate again the original background, I place it on top of the inverted edge-mask layer and set the layer mode to HARD LIGHT.
With this short tutorial you just open some new dimension to me.
Cheers.
[…] not really sure that it will be allowed in, as I used some techniques I discovered from this blog post to ‘cartoonize’ the photo in a manner reminiscent of the Charles Schwab commercials […]
I found a very detailed tutorial on cartooning a photograph. http://cartoonized.net/tutorial-turning-photograph-into-cartoon-part1.php
It is for adobe photoshop.
Would someone please ‘translate’ that tutorial into Gimp? I’d be very glad if you could. I needed very much to turn my picture into cartoon but I can only use gimp.
That is vectorization, and that is not really photoshop, its more Adobe Illustrator
You can use inkscape for vectorisation, it works really well.
I can’t follow the instruction Layers->Colors->Invert
I do not have the colors after layers so I can’t do Invert
Might be missing something, using gimp 2.6.1
Awesome tutorial!
Try using a Selective Gaussian Blur (Filter-Blur-Selective Gauassian Blur) after and/or Cartoon (Filter-Artistic-Cartoon.
Also might want to mess with giving it an Unsharp Mask (Filter-Enhance-Unsharp Mask!
Cool!
The first post was made 5 years ago, GIMP has change since then!
sometimes screwing around with posterize and van gough and then the “cartoon” filter gets a real good product
trust me
mess around with filters and posterize, fellow cartooners
[…] NUEVO —-> http://ocaoimh.ie/cartoonizing-photos-with-the-gimp/ […]
[…] Cartoonizing Photos With The GIMP – This is fun! After reading this tutorial on making cartoons from photos I tried to emulate his technique in the GIMP. The dialogs are slightly different but here’s what I did. Select the new layer, Filters->Edge-Detect->Edge , select Sobel , Amount should be 2. […]
Besides, you don’t need to use and spend money/memory for Photoshop, u can use GIMP or either this online http://www.pixlr.com/editor/
I get much closer to the effect shown in the example pictures if I chose dodge instead of divide. But it’s still not the same.
Please, if someone knows how to create the original effect in newer versions of Gimp, post here. Thanks a lot!
it didnt work for me. do you think u can do it again but with directions for GIMP 2.6.10
[…] Visit the link below to take it for a spin or, if you want to get hands on, check out this tutorial on achieving the same effect (with more control) using GIMP. […]
[…] cartoonizing Photos with Gimp (tags: Graphics.Gimp) […]
Here’s another take on cartoonization. Its a different idea about what result should look like, though.
http://paklos.blogspot.com/2011/01/cartoonization-in-gimp.html
[…] I’ve found a cool-but-simple tutorial for cartoonifying photos. This will help out with my webcomics, particularly since I can’t draw to save my life. The link is: http://ocaoimh.ie/cartoonizing-photos-with-the-gimp/ […]
what was your version of gimp sir?
That was done with an ancient version of GIMP. I have no idea which one now and haven’t tried it in quite a while.