Turning a Photograph into a Polka Dot Image in GIMP
This a very quick simple tutorial and a bit of fun! I have made a range of different sizes – 50px, 75px, 100px, 150px patterns so you can easily apply the effect in seconds. I suggest you try some masking of layers as well to experiment with design :).
1. Making a Polka Dot Stencil
- Create a new document in GIMP – choose the size of your Polka Dot (I have ready made ones to download at the end of the tutorial), Fill with: Transparency, 72 resolution should be fine:
- Grab the Ellipse Tool, fill the square with the a circle:
- Invert the selection, Ctrl + I or Select –> Invert:
- Grab the Paint Fill Tool, Fill Whole Selection with Black or White:
- Save this as Pattern file .pat!
- Then copy it into your Patterns Folder – C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\patterns (Could be different).
2. Pixelize
- Open your photograph in GIMP – Duplicate your image if you’d like to do some Layer Masking later!
- We need to pixelize the photograph to get the single solid colours for each dot – Go, Filters –> Blur –> Pixelize:
- Now choose the size of your pixels – depends on the Polka Dot size you want (50, 75, 100, 150, custom)
3. Applying Polka Dot Pattern
- In your Patterns Toolbar select the Polka Dot stencil you want to use (mine will be 74px BLACK):
- Now go, Edit –> Fill with Pattern (Ctrl +;):
4. Cropping Excess
- Your image and pattern will not always fit perfectly so a little cropping is needed.
- Just crop to the edges of the dots:
5. Saturation
- I recommend a little saturation to boost the effect!
6. Download Patterns
- You may download the Polka Dot Patterns here:
Black and White (50, 75, 100, 150):
- polka-50-BLACK.pat 9.8K
- polka-50-WHITE.pat 9.8K
That’s It!
If you are using Photoshop here is the tutorial: Polka Dot Effect (https://pinkzap.com)
If you get stuck anywhere just comment below!
If you’d like to use these photographs please Contact Me! :) .
Please comment below if you have any questions and I’ll answer them ASAP!
All images on this site are copyrighted© – All Rights Reserved.
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If I sent you a picture to make into colored dots (I want the dots the size of a single Mardi Gras bead) and the overall picture to be 30 inches wide and 20 inches high. (poster size) I only want the people color dotted. I am going to fill in the background with Mardi Gras beads. I need ASAP! Thank you!
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Thank you for this.
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Yeah, it is alright :P
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Thanks for the link.
I didn’t know that there is gimp for osx, only knew of the Linux and Windows versions.
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Hi Danilo,
Unfortunately I do not use Linux! This tutorial was done on OSX :)
There is an OSX theme for Linux here – OSX Tiger!
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Hello!!!
Sorry about my English (I’m brazilian)
Please tell me what’s the gtk theme you use.
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Ah yes, that is another good effect! They should consider putting in this Polka Dot effect too in the next release :) !
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Have a look at the ‘mosaic’ filter for a similar effect.