How to Create a Photoshop Painting Effect

What You’ll Be Creating

In this tutorial, we will create a vintage painting Photoshop action using smart filters, mask layers, vintage textures, and dynamic brushes.

Tutorial Assets

• Any photo you want to use for this manipulation. I chose this photo from Envato Elements.
• A set of dynamic brushes and overlay textures.

1. How to Prepare the Document

Step 1

Use Control-O and then select the image you want to use.

Step 2

Press Alt-Control-I and resize the image to 2000 x 2000 px.

Step 3

Create a new layer using the Shift-Control-N combination and name it “mask”.

Step 4

Create a duplicate of your background using Right-Click > Duplicate.

Step 5

Rename your new layer to “Image” and then Right-Click > Convert to Smart Object.

Step 6

Now we need to install the brushes in Photoshop. Click B to activate Brush Tool and then go to Preset Manager.

Step 7

After that, click Load and select the brushes from the tutorial attachments.

2. How to Create a Clipping Mask of the Layer

Step 1

Now let’s start to create the mask for our image. Select the “mask” layer and click B, and then draw strokes with the second brush from the set, as shown in the picture below.

Step 2

Draw the strokes on the edges of the figure with the first brush from the set.

Step 3

Move the mask layer below the smart object.

Step 4

Select the smart object and then Right Click > Create Clipping Mask.

Step 5

Make the “Background” layer invisible.

3. How to Create a Photoshop Painting Effect

Step 1

Select your smart object layer and go to Filter Gallery > Artistic > Dry Brush. Use the following settings: 

• Brush Size: 5
• Brush Detail: 6
• Texture: 1

Step 2

After that, go to Filter Gallery > Brush Strokes > Crosshatch and use the following settings: 

• Stroke Length: 9
• Sharpness: 6
• Strength: 1

Step 3

Go to Filter Gallery > Artistic > Paint Daubs and use the following settings: 

• Brush Size: 2
• Sharpness: 1

Step 4

And for the last filter, we need to add a splatter effect. Go Filter Gallery > Brush Strokes > Splatter with the following settings: 

• Spray Radius: 5
• Smoothness: 5

4. How to Create a Vintage Photoshop Effects Using Overlay Textures 

Step 1

Go to File > Place and select “Background Texture”. Resize it to the borders of the document while holding Shift.

Step 2

After that, move the “background texture” to the bottom of the Layers panel.

Step 3

Now we need to place and resize the second texture as we just did before.

Step 4

Now let’s change the Blending Mode of the texture to Multiply.

5. How to Create a Color Correction of the Image

Step 1

And for the last steps, we need to create a color correction of the document. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast and set the following settings: 

• Brightness: 30
• Contrast: 45

Step 2

Go to Layer > New Adjustments Layer > Hue/Saturation and set the Hue to +25.

Awesome Work, You’re Now Done!

In this simple way, we can create creative artworks from any photo using standard Photoshop filters, overlay textures, and dynamic brushes.