Photoshop is one of the most powerful applications in the Adobe Creative Suite. You can customize and manipulate any image with Photoshop’s versatile palette of image editing tools. One popular technique among graphic designers and photo editors alike, is the stencil art technique. You use any image to perform this task, and it is easy to learn. You will just need to practice this skill to perfect it.

1. Open Photoshop, then go to the “File” menu then click on “Open,” and then select the photo you want to use for your stencil project.
2. Step 2

   Select the “Crop” tool from the tools palette then select the portion of the photo you want to stencil, and then select the “Erase” tool and erase the area outside of the cropped area that you don’t want to use. If you want to use the entire image, then skip this step.

3. Step 3

   Go to the “Image” menu then select “Mode,” and then select “Grayscale.” Photoshop might prompt you to flatten the image; select “No” if it does.

4. Step 4

   Go to the “Filter” menu, then select “Artistic,” then select the “Cutout” option. Type in the number three in the box next to “Number of Levels.” This refers to the number of layers you want to use. Set the “Edge Fidelity” to 1 and the “Edge Simplicity” to 2.

5. Step 5

   Go to “File” then click on “Save As.” Name this file and opt to save it as a “.PSD” file, then click on the “Save” button.

6. Step 6

   Go to the “Layers” menu then select “Flatten Image.” Save this file as “Black Layer.jpg” then select the “Magic Wand” tool in the tools palette. Select the areas outside of the cropped image until the entire edge of image has been selected. Hold down the “SHIFT” while you click with the “Magic Wand” tool to select multiple areas.

7. Step 7

   Go to the “Select” menu, then click on “Inverse.”

8. Step 8

   Go to the “Edit” menu and click on “Fill” or press “SHIFT”+”F5.” The “Fill” dialog box will open. Select “Black” as the fill color. Save this file again or press “CTRL”+”S.”

9. Step 9

   Go to the “Filter” menu then click on “Stylize,” then select the “Find Edges” option. Hit “CTRL”+”S” to save the file again.

10. Step 10

    Open the “.PSD” file you saved, and then go to “Layer,” then select the “Flatten Image” option. Save the image as “Gray.jpg.”

11. Step 11

    Select the “Eye Dropper” tool from the tools palette then select the gray part of the photo. Then select the white section of the photo with the “Magic Wand” tool. Right-click on this white section then select the “Similar” option. This will select all white sections of the image.

12. Step 12

    Go to “Edit” then select “Fill,” and then select “Gray” as the fill color. This will make all the white sections of the photo gray.

13. Step 13

    Select the “Magic Wand” tool from the tools palette, and then adjust the “Tolerance” to 50. Select a black area, then right-click, then select the “Similar” option. Go to “Edit,” select “Fill,” select “White,” then click on a blank area of the image to deselect the “Magic Wand” tool.

14. Step 14

    Go to “Image,” then select “Adjust,” and then select “Brightness and Contrast.” Set the “Contrast” slider to 100 percent and the “Brightness” slider to 25 percent.