Today’s Post by Joe Farace
But I’m a toon. Toons are supposed to make people laugh.”— from the 1988 film Roger Rabbit
Mixing genres: Glamour photography meets comic book art? PanosFX’s “Cartoons and Pop Art” action set works much like a Swiss Army Knife using a combination of Photoshop filters and advanced features. The actions are easy to use; one click on the action and in the latest update, you’re presented with three different versions of your original photo. You can select and then save the one you like or even both of them. The original image is kept on a separate layer and after turning it on you can blend the two layers together to create yet another variation of the photograph.
Tips: Panos says the actions work best with images from four to eight megapixels. If your image is larger or smaller, he recommends using the Image > Image size command to resize it (e.g, on 3:2 or 4:3 photos, you should set the width from 2500 to 3500px.) If you use images that have transparency (PSD or PNG,) the transparent areas will be preserved.
PanosFX’s actions can also create 16 different speech balloons that he designed in Illustrator, to give you the power and beauty of vector graphics.
Another feature of the action is collages. The actions can create two different collages, with four and nine photos and customizable colors. The size of these collages is 4 and 9 times the original photo size; this lets you create large format prints for your friends and clients.
The actions are available for Photoshop’s various versions as well as Photoshop elements for the same price: $17.90.
How I made the original shot: This glamour portrait of Ashley Hannah was shot for a series of portfolio photographs using a Panasonic Lumix GH4 and Lumix G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 lens at 45mm. It was shot with my typical lighting setup with Paul C. Buff monolights. Background was a 5×7-ft Savage Photo Gray Infinity vinyl background although you would never know if from the cartoon version. For a comparison, you can see the original of this photograph on my post Manual Exposure is Not Just for Purists.
Upcoming: I have a cosplaying model who has a Jessica Rabbit costume and I look forward to a shoot with her and using the Cartoons and Pop Art action on some of her photographs. When I do, Ill create a post about that shoot. Look for it real soon now…
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