Photoshop Watercolor Photo Effect Tutorial

In this comprehensive tutorial by Arunz Creations, you'll discover how to transform a portrait into a beautiful watercolor painting using Photoshop.

The process begins by organizing your layers into a group and temporarily hiding it. Next, you'll select specific colors from the portrait using the Color Range tool to create a precise selection. After applying the selection as a mask on the group and inverting it, you'll create a new empty layer beneath the group and fill it with white to serve as the base for your watercolor effect.

This method allows you to achieve a stunning watercolor painting effect by blending the colors from the portrait with a textured appearance reminiscent of traditional watercolor techniques.

It's a creative and artistic way to enhance your photos and add a unique touch of painterly style using Photoshop's powerful tools and layering techniques.

Watch tutorial

Get tutorials & freebies delivered to you.

Subscribe to the Photoshop Roadmap newsletter, a weekly roundup of new tutorials, insights and quality downloads, trusted by 6500+ readers.

How to Use AI Object Masking in Camera Raw for Targeted Exposure Adjustments

Selecting complex foreground elements — detailed trees, people, motion-blurred figures — used to mean hours of careful masking work. The AI-powered object selection inside Camera Raw changes that entirely, letting you make rough brush strokes and still walk away with a precise, editable mask. Combined with a non-destructive smart...

How to Remove Wrinkles and Replace Backdrops in Post-Production

Wrinkled fabric backdrops, uneven lighting, and backgrounds that don't quite fill the frame are common problems when shooting on a budget. Fixing them manually through dodge and burn, frequency separation, or content-aware fill can eat up significant editing time — especially across a full shoot's worth...

Camera Raw July 2026 Update: Focus Point Display, Gradient Feathering, and Generative Expand

Adobe Camera Raw's July 2026 update adds a handful of useful tools that Lightroom users are still waiting on. The standout additions include native focus point display, independent feather controls for bidirectional linear gradients, and improvements to the generative expand feature inside the crop tool. Watch the Video...

Turn a Single Photo into a Cinematic Movie Poster with Triadic Color Grading

Color choice is what separates a flat photo edit from a convincing movie poster. This tutorial walks through how to apply triadic color harmony to a single street photograph, using yellow as the dominant tone with controlled accents of blue and red to create visual tension and draw the eye...

Pixel Stretch Effect in Photoshop Using the Single Column Marquee Tool

The pixel stretch effect takes a single column of pixels from a subject and extends it horizontally across the frame, creating a sharp, graphic streak that suggests speed or energy. It works on portraits, athletes, and objects alike, and the entire process relies on just a few basic Photoshop tools...

How to Assign a Custom Keyboard Shortcut to Select Subject in Photoshop

Navigating to Select > Subject every time you need to isolate a subject adds up to a surprising amount of wasted clicks. Photoshop lets you assign a custom keyboard shortcut to almost any menu command — including Select Subject — so you can trigger it instantly without touching the menus. Watch the...