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..

  • 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!


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40 thoughts on “Cartoonizing Photos With The GIMP

  1. Donncha (1724 comments.)

    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.

    Reply
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  3. justin (2 comments.)

    aaagh – i see it. i had the layer dock turned off.

    Dialogs -> Create New Dock -> Layers Channels & Paths

    Reply
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  5. Jan

    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.

    Reply
  6. dago

    well here are my steps

    Layer > Duplicate Layer

    Filter > Edge-Detect > Edge…

    Filter > Colors > Value Invert

    Layers > Mode > Value

    Reply
  7. SoulinEther

    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..

    Reply
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  9. studio-catastrofe

    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.

    Reply
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  11. Ruther

    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

    Reply
  12. Matt

    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!

    Reply
  13. keenefilmproductions

    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

    Reply
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  16. Kevin

    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!

    Reply
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