1. A tool
First of all, we need a tool to make transformation happen. For this purpose, we highly recommend an image editor called GIMP. Don’t worry it’s free and you can download it instantly here: GIMP Download Did GIMP download and installed it on your computer? OK, so now it’s time to open an image that we want to transform. To do so just click: File -> Open or simply drag and drop your image into GIMP active window.
2. Let’s get ready to rumble!
A thing to remember! The more bright and sharp the picture you choose the higher are chances to achieve a good effect. The resolution of the image is also important. In general, the higher the better. After uploading the image, we can also slightly boost its vividness. To do so click Colours -> Brightness-Contrast and adjust the Contrast value. In our picture, we increased it by 20.
3. A crucial step
And now the real fun begins. What we are going to do here is the actual transformation of the picture. So do it carefully and unhurriedly. The quality of the final effect depends to a large extent on this step. At first click: Filters -> Artistic -> Photocopy and watch all the magic that GIMP is able to create! After that, you’ll see a smaller window with four equally important values to adjust: Mask Radius, Sharpness, Percent black and Percent white
And that’s a tricky part because there is no one and perfect value to use for all transformations. But the good thing is that in many cases, the optimal values will be similar to those presented above. Nevertheless, always try to play with sliders a little bit and search for the best effect.
4. Halfway
Are you already here? So the hardest part is already behind you! And your picture should look very similar to a normal coloring page now. Actually, we would like to color our shark straight away, but we don’t need to hurry. Instead, we’ll try to improve it a little bit more. So what’s now? Some elements in our picture seem to be too bright. So we’ll try to darken them using a tool called Dodge / Burn It can be found in a toolbox on the left side. It is important for you to check the boxes: Burn and Midtones And then we just move the tool over to bright areas and click a left button of a mouse until we get a satisfying effect.
5. Almost done
It might also happen that you’ll notice some badly blurred areas or simply elements that you don’t want to have in the picture. Fortunately, we have an old, good Eraser to be found in the toolbox on the left. Erase what you don’t like and give your coloring page final touches.
6. Scale
What we’ll do now is the final preparation of the size of the picture for printing in A4 format. Luckily, at least this part is very easy. Just click Image -> Image Scale and in the field Height type 780 px (it can be less but never more) Then just click: Scale
7. Your own coloring page is ready!
A height is ok, so now we only need to adjust the right width of the image. To do that click: Image -> Canvas size and type 600 px (as previously, it can be less but not more) To confirm click: Resize A4 format is ready and now you can print your coloring page on a classic sheet of paper.
8. Save your work
Your own coloring page is finally ready so don’t forget to save it! You can do it using for example png format but jpg is also fine. To do so find: File -> Export As, then give a name to your file and click: Export You made it! Your own coloring page is ready!
