A rather popular gift idea is that of the poster printed, on paper or on canvas, with a photo portrait in Pop Art style . In this guide we see how it is possible to create a pop art image at home and for free, starting from a digital photograph that can then be printed with a normal Inkjet printer.
Pop Art is the one that made the artist Andy Warhol famous, whose images of Marylin Monroe are famous.
The photographic process that allows you to create this type of image is the " posterization " which reduces the number of colors and shades and increases the contrast of the photo which therefore becomes suitable for comics, modern portraits and advertising posters.
Creating a pop-art image as a professional photo editing expert would do is simple for everyone and, above all, it can be done with a program like Photoshop or, even better, with Paint.net that can be downloaded for free .
In addition, pop art portraits can be printed without problems and without consuming colors, with the normal home inkjet printer.
First of all, you need to take an inspiration theme to know how you want to transform the photo.
I recommend, to seek inspiration on the type of portrait to be created, to search the best image and photo search sites.
To create your own Pop-Art image, open the photo to be transformed with Photoshop or Paint.net and proceed in this way (the menus to which I refer are those of Paint.net but on Photoshop it is almost identical.
Go to the Image -> Resize menu and set the width of 8 inches and the height to 10 inches, with a resolution of 300 dpi.
If the image does not respect the proportions, cut the sides using the rectangular selection tool and then going to the Edit menu, invert the selection and cut the edge.
It is important to keep these dimensions of the image so then, when you go to print it, it fits perfectly into a normal A4 page compatible with a printer.
However, I remember that you can also print large images and posters on a normal printer thanks to some programs explained in another article.
Once resized to the photograph, it must be transformed into black and white by going to the Adjustments -> Black and White menu to create a grayscale version of the image
Now go to the Adjustments menu -> Posterize to turn the image into a Pop Art photo.
From the window that opens, you have to move the three levers (red, green and blue) to your liking until or until the desired result is achieved.
The difficulty is now only visual, in the sense that there are no defined parameters to be used but, depending on the photo, you have to work more with instinct and taste than with reason.
At each adjustment you will notice that the image changes showing in real time how it transforms.
You can raise the flag on the " connected " button to have more freedom of choice.
It is better to keep the image in black and white so the printing will be more defined.
When you are satisfied, save the Pop-Art portrait and prepare to print the poster.
To print the newly processed image, use the free XnView program which works very well for printing bright images.
Just open them with XnView and, from the File menu, start printing.
Since the image is still in black and white, the printing must take place on red, yellow, green, blue or colored paper.
In stationery you can buy colored A4 sheets of paper and it is the only expense to be incurred.
The printing takes place in black and white (cheaper than color printing) and, thanks to the posterization effect, the colored paper will do the rest to have the pop art image.
The printed images will be bright, without smudging as if it had been developed by a professional photographer.
If you want to print the larger image, as mentioned above, there are programs that facilitate printing on multiple A4 sheets that can then be glued together.
If you want to try an automatic tool, I remember the online and free tools to edit images and retouch photos with Big Huge Labs filters, including the Pop Art effect.
