Vector Art in Photoshop: A tutorial

Vector Art in Photoshop is an extremely popular style of edits to do! By doing so, beginners can flourish and learn something new and make it applicable to make cool edits for their peers and potential clients.

Table of Contents

Here is the entire process of how to draw Vector Art in Photoshop

Step 1. Preparing your image

First of all, go to your image size to check your image size and resolution

Should change your image resolution to 300 pixels/inch.

Also, you must change your image size between 2000-3000 pixels in width or height.

With your main layer selected, press CTRL+J to duplicate your image once. Hide the background layer, keeping layer one visible

Cut the subject of the image from the background. Use the quick selection tool to select your subject from the image. From the toolbar on the left, select the quick selection tool. Click and hover over your subject to prominently choose your subject. Zoom into the image to refine the image.

With Layer 1 selected, go to the bottom right corner of the screen and select the mask icon to isolate your selection of the image.

Now Select the Background Layer and then go to the bottom right corner of the screen, select a solid color, and change the color to white. Then Click OK

Select both of the Layers and Right-click and choose Merge Layers from the Drop Down Menu

At this step, normally, I would recommend using Oil Painting, but Oil Paint is not available in all versions of Photoshop. Let us go for an easy alternative.

First, click on Layer 1 and press CTRL+J to duplicate it once. With the duplicated layer selected, go to filters, sharpen, then choose smart sharpen. Change Amount to 200%, Radius to 2px and Reduce Noise to 30%. Choose Gaussian Blur from the Remove selection. Then click OK

The duplication of the layer has been made to see the before and after of the images.

Now, Go to Filters, then Stylize, then choose Diffuse. Change the Mode to Anisotropic. Then click ok. Click on Image Menu, then on Image Rotation. Rotate it 90 degrees clockwise.

After doing so, go to filters and stylize, then choose Diffuse once again with the same settings.

Do this three times to emphasize the entire image as a whole.

After completing one whole rotation with the diffuse filter, sharpen the image with your layer selected. Go to filters, then to sharpen and click on the smart sharpen filter. Leave the values as we set them before and click ok.

We will now go around the whole rotation step again with the diffuse filter. It is written above how to do that exactly for a second time.

Delete the Original Layer 1 and keep the duplicate.

Step 02. Creation of the Effect

Now, right-click on your layer and choose ‘Convert to Smart Object.’

Press CTRL+J twice to duplicate the images. Rename the three pictures to ‘High Pass,’ “Soft Details,’ ‘Hard Details from top to bottom.

Select the bottom layer and hide the other two layers. With this layer selected, go to Filters and click on Filter Gallery. Under Artistic Folder, Select The CutOut Filter. Number of Levels to 8. Edge Simplicity to 5. Change Edge Fidelity to 1. Then click OK.

With your layer selected, go to filters, then sharpen. Choose Unsharp Mask. Change the Amount to 150%. Change Radius to 2px and Threshold to 0. Then click OK

Please move to the second layer, make it visible. Then go to Filters and then Filter Gallery. Apply the CutOut Filter and only change Edge Simplicity to 6. Then click OK.

On the Layer Tab, double click on the Filter Gallery tab. Change its opacity to 35%.

On the same Layer, Go to Filter’s and Filter Gallery once again. Select The CutOut Filter once again. Change values to 8, 6 and 2. Then click OK

Double click on the new Filter Gallery Tab and adjust the opacity to 35% again.

Again, Go to Filter and then sharpen to choose Unsharp Mask on the same layer. Change the Amount to 250% and keep the other ones as is. Click OK

Then change the layer opacity to 50%. That will add a lot of detail to the entire image.

We will add some other details now. Go to the last layer and go to filter, then others to select The High Pass filter. Change the Radius to 2. Click Ok. Change the Blending mode to Overlay, which can find above the Layers Tab.

That will add some additional sharpening effects to our image’s details. Now select all three layers and drag it down to the bottom right corner of the screen to see a folder icon. It will make a group of them. Name the group’ Effect.’

To further refine our image, let us add some adjustment layers.

First, add a levels adjustments layer. Drag the two sliders on the right and left a little bit to adjust the level of blacks and whites in an image.

Now add a Vibrance layer. Increase both Vibrance and Saturation sliders to your liking.

Now add a Color Balance Layer and adjust mid-tones accordingly. Then adjust shadows accordingly, Then finally adjust highlights.

For the final step, select all three layers and then drag and drop them on the folder icon on the bottom right to create a group. After creating that, rename the folder to ‘Adjustments.’

There you have it! In these easy steps, one can easily make a spectacular art piece that will do nothing but enhance their skills in Photoshop.