How to Turn a Picture Into a Cartoon

Cartoon cat

Turning a picture into a cartoon is basically done by darkening in all outer lines and sometimes removing much of the color, leaving us with an image like those found in a coloring book. It can be left that way or recolored.The process of turning a picture into a cartoon can be done with many different graphics software programs. This "how to" will use a freeware graphics program called "GIMP" or "GNU Image Manipulation Program". It will show how to create a mostly black-and-white cartoon with dark lines.

Things You'll Need

• Latest version of GIMP (2.4.6 or higher)
• Image

Instructions

1. Download and install the latest version of GIMP (see Resources below).

2. Create a copy of your photo.

3. 

   Open picture with GIMP by going up to the "File" menu and clicking "Open" to locate your picture.

4. Open up the "Layers" window by going up to the "Dialog" menu and click on "Layers".

5. Duplicate the background layer in the image window by going up to the "Layers" window and right-clicking on "Duplicate layer" or clicking the icon on the bottom toolbar.

6. Highlight the "Background copy" in the "Layers" window.

7. Add a Gaussian Blur to the "Background copy" layer by going back to the image window, clicking "Filters" on the top toolbar, choosing "Blur" and then choosing "Gaussian Blur".

8. Set the "Blur Radius" by going to the "Gaussian Blur" window and setting the horizontal and vertical radius of between 3 and 10 pixels (8 pixels works well for this task). Click "OK".

9. Divide the layers by going back to the "Layers" window and choosing "Divide" on the "Mode" menu.

10. Flatten the image by going to the "Layer" menu on the image window and clicking "Merge Down".

11. Open the Cartoon filter window by clicking on "Filters", choosing "Artistic" and then "Cartoon".

12. 

    Apply the Cartoon filter by going to the Cartoon window, changing the settings until the desired effect shows in the Preview window and clicking "OK". "Percent black" darkens the black lines, and "Mask radius" will smooth the image and remove some of the background noise (settings of 40.00 for the mask radius and 0.70 for the percent black are used in the sample picture).

13. Finish the image by leaving it as it is or drawing in more lines, darkening some lines and filling in areas with colors.

14. Flatten the new image by going into the "Image" menu and choosing "Flatten Image".

15. Save the image by going up to "File" and clicking "Save as".

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• GIMP software for download