Andy Warhol Pop Art Effect in Photoshop – Tutorial

The Andy Warhol effect is one of the beginner level effects that you could try out in Photoshop. This is a simple tutorial with some basic photo editing utilities of Adobe Photoshop CS5 used.

Glimpse of the Pop Art Effect:

How To:

Step 1:

Choose the photo you intend to add the effect to.

I chose this photo from Flickr under the Creative Commons License. The image is attributed to user choupigloupi.

Step 2:

Using the Lass0 Tool in the toolbar, make a selection.

The selection need not be accurate since we would be using blocks of colors without strokes for this effect anyway.

Step 3:

Separate the selection in a new layer.  To do this, hit Ctrl+J or choose the Layer –> New –> Layer Via Copy option.

Step 4:

We will create another layer to work on. Just duplicate the layer created in Step 3.

Step 5:

Select the layer last created and make the adjustment shown below. Image –> Adjustments –> Threshold is chosen.

Step 6:

The Threshold window opens up. Set the threshold level as needed – for my chosen image, 140 seemed suitable.

Step 7:

Hit OK. The image with threshold level applied is shown below.

Step 8:

Create a new layer and fill the layer with the color which you deem suitable for the face of the model.

Step 9:

Set the property of this newly created layer to Multiply.

You will get a similar effect depending on the color you’ve chosen for the skin tone.

Step 10:

Erase the background color using the eraser tool. We will be setting a different color for the background.

Step 11:

Use the brush tool and apply different shades to the hair, eyes and lips.

Step 12:

Now for the background, we shall create a new layer and fill it with a suitable color.

Step 13:

Set the property of the background color layer to Color Burn.

Step 13:

As you can see, the background layers have been hidden.

You’ve got the Warhol effect in just a few steps.