DIY Coloring book/painting of your pet (no drawing skills required!)

Here's an easy, simple way to turn a photo of your pet into a work of art! For this tutorial, I will be using GIMP 2.0, a free photo editing program that you can download here. Although I am using GIMP, this process can be done in most other photo editing programs such as Photoshop.

Let's get started!

*Click the images to enlarge

1.

Open up GIMP, click on File>Open and select the picture you will be using. I'll be using a picture of this kitten.

2.

Once your picture is open in GIMP, you want to turn it into a black and white photo. To do this, click on Colors>Desaturate. 

3.

On the right side of the screen, you'll find the layers panel. Right click your layer and duplicate it.

4.

Next, you'll want to invert the color of the top layer. With the top layer selected, click on Colors>Invert. 

5.

The top layer should still be selected in this step. At the top of the layers panel, you should see a "Mode: Normal". Open up the drop down menu and select Dodge. This should make your picture very faint.

6.

Right click the top layer and select merge down. This should leave you with one single layer.

7.

Now we want to make the image more visible. Click on Colors>Curves. Play around with the curve until you reach a point where the image is lightly colored but still visible.

8. Lastly, we want to click on File>Export As, and save your image.


Now you can print your picture out and use it as a coloring page
OR
Save your photo onto a flash drive and bring it into Walmart. You can choose to print your photo on a canvas and bring it home to paint yourself!

Good luck and have fun!