Cartoon is believed as a visual art that has the same commonalities as other paintings, but it doesn't mean cartoon is completely equivalent to other painting genre. Cartoon mainly expresses the theme of satire or humor with exaggeration and distortion, which is the most notable feature of this art. Such work will leave a strong impression on the viewer.
Nowadays, cartoon is widely-used in human portraits caricature making. Take a quick look at Google Play or Google SERP, and you will see a variety of tools developed to support users to produce entertaining and amusing face caricature.
In the past, painting cartoons or portrait caricatures is the exclusive privilege of an artist. But now, with modern AI technology, this process is becoming more smart and convenient.
If you are interested in turning human face photos to caricature portraits, then try to utilize Photoshop. With many useful options including layer and filter, it may help you distort images to process cool cartoon effect. The most important procedures are listed as follows. By learning this brief guide, even a beginner can have a try.
What is Photoshop?
Overview:
Adobe Photoshop referred to as "PS", is an image processing software developed and distributed by Adobe Systems. Photoshop mainly deals with digital images composed of pixels and supports Windows, Android, and Mac OS.
Ps has many functions, which are involved in image, graphics, text, video, publishing, and other aspects. Using its numerous editing and drawing tools, you can effectively edit pictures.
How to use Photoshop to forge portraits image into caricatures?
Step 1: Select or Prepare Your Image
To start with, you need to prepare a high-quality human face photo. Meanwhile, you'd better choose the image with some highlight points. For example, the person is smiling or keeping eyes open, which will be helpful to create a vivid and funny effect in the final results.
Step 2: Adjust Image Background and Face Ratio
The pure white background in the photo simplifies the process of separating the image from the background. What's more, in traditional caricature making, the head is usually bigger than the body. Thus, increasing the face ratio and decrease the body area help to set up a basic and original frame for the following operations.
Step 3: Transformation and Deformation
If every element off the face has been well-separated and located on different layers. then you can make use of transformation tools in Photoshop. Hit Control-T and open the Free Transform function which helps to lengthen the chin, pull the mouth, and stretch the jaw. Then Smart Objects helps to work with a different combination of sizes for a cheerful effect.
Step 4: Use Liquify tool to create exaggerated effects
Though we have done a lot of work to lay the foundation for that process, the Liquify tool plays the most important role in creating a really funny caricature. By which, you can bulge the eyes, make the ears larger, and stretch the corners of the cheeks... Anyway, feel free to exaggerate the face more if you’d like.
The above just mentions the basic and core operations of transforming an image to caricature, and there are more details and complicated steps that you will meet in reality.
Pros and cons for image to caricature in Photoshop:
Pros:
- Photoshop provides powerful appliances to meet your needs. Some functions indeed give amazing effects when you create a caricature.
- You can enjoy the process of how to finish a glorious work step by step and the exploration travel is full of fun.
- A variety of free guides is offered online, thus you can find the solutions easily when you face difficulties while using Photoshop.
Cons:
- Beginners who never use this software could face many problems at the beginning. Maybe the final works they get are not what they want.
- Photoshop requires more time and energy if you want to get the best and fantastic caricature. Even the most professional one takes 10 minutes or more time to obtain satisfying work.
But don't worry, here comes a faster way to turn your photo to caricature- using Caricaturer.io.
What is about Caricaturer.io?
Overview:
Caricaturer.io is an online caricature photo maker dedicated to distorting images for cool effects. So far, the publisher has just announced a web page for users to operate.
The platform utilizes powerful AI technology to produce over 60 styles of caricature photos based on the given portraits.
How to turn image to caricature on caricaturer.io
Just four simple steps to get transformed photos beyond expectation.
Step 1. Open your browser and go to caricaturer.io.
Open your web browser and tap the website domain name “caricaturer.io” in Google search bar. BTW, this site supports multiple browsers, and here we just show example on Chrome.
Step 2. Choose your photo and upload it
After the first step, you come to the right page. There is a brief introduction about the service of caricaturer.io.
To get amazing cartoon effect, you need to prepare the photo with a clear human face. Then click the blue button “Upload an Image”. Or you can directly drag the file from the desktop.
Step 3. Wait for effect processing
As the transformation process involves many elements of re-editing and processing, thus it usually takes 2-3 minutes to show final results. Just enjoy a cup of coffee before the process is well done.
Once the Process is done, you can acquire 60+ great pictures, and each of them has different style. Here we upload a man portrait, and we can see that Caricaturer.io deals with the image with exaggeration and distortion.
Step 4. Save the image after the process finished
According to the publisher of this site, over 60+ cartoon effects will be processed once you upload a single image, So how to save these cute and funny works?
4.1 Save single image
Photoshop requires more time and energy if you want to get the best and fantastic caricature. Even the most professional one takes 10 minutes or more time to obtain satisfying work.
4.2 Save all images as zip file
If you like all of the pictures and want to download a zip file at once. please sign up a new account. At the upper right corner of the website, you can find the entrance of registration.
Once you create a new account, you will receive an email from caricaturer.io. After verifying the link, you get access to storing the zip file.
If common quality is enough for you, click the “Download All Caricature” button. If you need to post on your social medias, you can click the “Download All Caricature HD” to get higher quality images.
Pros and Cons:
Pros:
- Free to use: you can enjoy all the services for free. No extra payment, thus you save your money.
- Simple and smooth process: As mentioned above, you can turn portraits image to caricature with simple steps. As long as the computer is on hand, you can visit the caricaturer.io and enjoy the perfect service.
- Friendly to all users: whether you are a newbie who lacks image editing experience, or an expert of Photoshop, you can create a caricature without any difficulty.
Cons:
- The time of processing is a little bit longer, which needs further optimization by the developer.
Conclusion
A caricature image shows the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings. And thanks to AI technology, creating great cartoon images is no longer the mission of artists.
Everyone can create a caricature file based on the uploaded photo with the help of forward tools we have introduced before. Photoshop or caricaturer.io has its own merits, and what suits you is the best.
