Need help with proper thresholding

[slapz]

Hey everyone,

My girlfriends birthday is coming up, and since we just bought a house together I thought it would be cool to make a canvas of our dog. The kind of thing im trying to make should be something like this:



The problem is; I cant seem to get the threshold right. I cant get all the details such as the eyes and stuff in. Either the whole thing gets way to black, or it all gets way to white. I tried messing with the levels before thresholding it but that didnt really help either.

Can someone please help me on my way and tell me how to get a good threshold? Or should I got with a completely different approach alltogether?

The picture Im trying to edit is:



Any help would be greatly appreciated! Many thanks in advance!

 

[Steve]

Try Posterize instead.
If you want to use threshold duplicate the layer, do an adjustment on the copy, and lower the opacity on it.

 

[MikeMc]

The pug image posted looks like a number of layers, but also I see a lot of graphics drawn into other layers That said I don't think using thresholds will work...As your pooch doesn't sport hand drawn graphics!

 

[slapz]

Hmm thanks for the quick comments! MikeMC Do you think I should redraw my photo myself in order to get a good effect? (It's a shame my wacom tablet is still in storage with a lot of my stuff :/ )

 

[MikeMc]

Hmm thanks for the quick comments! MikeMC Do you think I should redraw my photo myself in order to get a good effect? (It's a shame my wacom tablet is still in storage with a lot of my stuff :/ )

Yes, depending on your pen skills.

 

[SCTRWD]

Using Threshold is always like this: some areas look good, other ones - just bad.

I make it this way:
1. Choose the channel with lots of mid tones. Copy and paste it on your image
2. Add Threshold layer, choose Level value which gives you the best result.
3. Now add a 50% Gray layer under the Threshold with Overlay blend mode
4. Use Burn and Dodge tools on the gray layer. Burn lets you add details where you lack them while Dodge tool lets you get rid of big solid black areas.

In the process you can tweak the Threshold level to see if it makes the overall effect any better

 

[Tom Mann]

Instead of thresholding, try Medhi Vibrations, an old reliable, free plugin for doing exactly this sort of thing.

T