Here is a cool technique for turning a photo into a posterized vector file using Photoshop CS3 and Illustrator CS3. (Dont worry, it’s relatively easy.)
Open your image in Photoshop and change the Color Mode to Grayscale.
Increase the Brightness quite a bit. (I used Brightness/Contrast and increased the Brightness to +100 two times.)
Posterize to 4 levels and save.
Place the image into Illustrator, open the Live Trace-> Tracing options and set the Mode to Grayscale and the Max Colors to 4.
Expand the Object and Fill.
With the White (Direct Select) Arrow, click on a black filled shape then Select->Same->Fill Color then Cut.
Create a new layer and Paste In Front (which pastes what you just cut onto the new layer). Do this to the remaining 3 tints of gray, giving them each their own layer.
Now, you can select all the objects on each particular layer and easily give them a different colored fill.
(Some color combinations work better than others)
Tags: dogs, Illustrator, Photoshop
Ok, so with Greg’s help, I have finally figured out how to do this. I couldn’t let go of the black, though, I just wasn’t ready. Maybe next time.
Well done, Lisa. I absolutely love it. If you experiment a little with the Brightness/Contrast step, you can probably get a bit more detail in the end result.