Easy Cartoon Illustration Effect

It takes some real skill to draw realistic characters and portraits, but there’s a shortcut you can take using this illustration Photoshop action. This action will allow you to create the outlines, colours, and shading of a digitally painted image automatically, without the need to trace, paint or draw by hand.

How to use action

• 1. Load the action into Photoshop
• 2. Hit play in the action menu

Alternatively, you can open up the action panel by going to – Window – Action, and then find the ‘Illustration Effect’ and hit the play button.

Voila! The final result is a cartoon-like illustration effect with bold outlines, vibrant colours and defined shading.

This Photoshop action works best with images at the standard size of 1920×1280 pixels.

Enjoy!

UPDATE

This action has been updated to now work on PS CS6, PS 2020, and PS 2021