This tutorial utilise the History Brush to turn any picture or photo into an free style painting.

Step One: To start off, open an image you want to turn into an “artistic” piece of art.

Step Two: First thing you need to do is create a new layer, so simply go to Layer->New->Layer. Click OK on the dialog box and you should have a new layer.

Set your foreground color to white (press D to reset the color palletes, then press X to set foreground to white) Now use the Paint Bucket tool or Ctrl + Backspace to fill the new layer with white.

Step Three: Now open your “History” pallete. If its not open, go to Windows -> History If you followed the tutorial correctly, you should now have the same history as mine.

Step Four: Next, click on the empty box to the left of the “Open” item on the history pallete to mark the history brush. Then in the Toolbox, select and hold down the History Brush, then select “Art History Brush”.

Step Five: At the top you will see a toolbar for the history brush. This is where you can set different variables for the brush, so select the brush size and style you want to use (experiment is the key here).

Final Step: Then simply use the brush and paint on top of the white layer. You will see that the brush will start painting the image of the original layer, in an artistic style. After you’ve painted the whole image, go to Filter->Sharpen->Unsharp Mask, and enter the following settings: Amount: 200%, Radius: 1px, Threshold: 0

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