How To Convert Photos Into Illustrations
I thought I’d share a little trick I just learned. I wanted to include a picture of myself on my Tumblr page, but I didn’t like the way most of the photos looked in relation to the rest of the site design. I wanted an image that wasn’t too distracting. I also wanted the image to contain some colors from my site palette so the image blended in with the rest of the page. I don’t have Photoshop, so I used some free online tools instead. First, I uploaded a photo of myself to VectorMagic, which converts images into vector graphics. I choose settings that reduced the number of colors in the photo down to just a handful. The result is something that resembles a drawing like the ones in Richard Linklater’s movie Waking Life. Then, I uploaded that image to Splashup, a free online image tool. There, I edited a few of the colors to match ones used in my site palette. Now I’ve got a one-of-a-kind illustration of myself that fits nicely with my Tumblr theme. The whole thing took just a few minutes. You can see the final product in the sidebar of my site.
This concludes our lesson for today. Back to work.
