Festive fun with filters

James Paterson reveals how to use the new neural filters in Photoshop CC to transform a photograph into a cute and creative Christmas image

- James Paterson

THE MISSION

Experiment with the new Style Transfer neural filters in Photoshop CC

Time needed

15 minutes

Skill level

Beginner

Kit needed

Photoshop CC

Thanks to a late 2020 update, Photoshop now offers an array of neural filters. We’ll use the Style Transfer filter here to transform our photo into a festive greeting card. This particular filter lets you re-style your photo based on analysis of another work of art. So you can load in a Van Gogh or a Degas and transfer the colour palette and brush style to your photo. Like all filter effects, Style Transfer is a bit hit and miss. But it’s fun to try out, and it’s interesting to see how the filter works differently in areas of the image rather than as a blanket effect – which is what you’d get with the older Photoshop filters.

Neural filters are some of the most interesting new features to appear in Photoshop in a long time. Not just for the amusing things they can do, but also for what they represent. Adobe’s ultimate goal with neural filters is to reduce the amount of time you spend on editing by automating processes with machine learning. As such, neural filters encompass all kinds of tasks, and not just transformative effects like this. There are those that recolour black and white photos for you, automatically seek out and remove JPEG artefacts, and more.