Converting a photo to 3 colors only: black/white/one type of gray

[morty]

Hello everyone,

As a new member happy finding such a forum, I have a (could be dumb) question which I tried to find the answer here and everywhere but it's not easy to search it. I'd really appreciate if you can help me with this. I have a photo and I'm gonna paint it on a wall. Added to that I'm not really good in photoshop, this is my first time to paint a mural. So, I've a sample frame of the movie "Shining", the scene with Jack Nicholson's head coming out of the broken door. A a new member I can't send link of the exact photo now but I think it's famous enough for most people.

I'll convert it to grayscale first, but because I'm novice in mural painting, I want to have this picture only in only 3 colors: white (wall is already painted in white), black, and one type of gray only; not so many different shadows of gray which grayscale produces. It means I'll lose some details of the photo of course, but it'll be painted much easier on the wall. I tried the style with only black and white, and it doesn't look good that way, I need one gray shadow at least. Do you expert guys probably have a solution for this and can you please explain it step by step?

Thanks in advance to all. If I can do that I'll put a photo of the final mural here

 

[Hoogle]

look on youtube for obama hope style poster tutorial I think that will do what you want
here is the 1st 1 I found

 

[webwize]

Hi Morty

You may already of sorted this using Hooglemans advice and if so well done and it would be great to see the final image If not is this the type of thing you are looking for?



I wont explain what I've done right now as you may already of sorted it but just ask if you still want to know and I will be happy to help.

cheers

webwize

 

[webwize]

Hi Ivan

Could you explain that a little more by any chance please, I would be interested to know how to get the effect he is looking for with a gradient map as it would be easier than my method and I just tried it with no luck

cheers

webwize

 

[webwize]

Thanks Ivan I have lean't something new today which is always great

 

[morty]

Thanks to everyone! clever ideas, so I mixed some of them with my basic knowledge in photoshop and made this one (I can't send links so I put a space in the URL):
khabzade . com/shining.psd

It's not as good as you'd do, but good enough for me to put in on the wall. Ivan's idea is fast and good, but not for a novice mural painter.

Cheers!