Two Ways to Turn Your Photo into Watercolor Painting - FlexClip & Photoshop

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Two Ways to Turn Your Photo into Watercolor Painting - FlexClip & Photoshop

Last Updated: 2026. 02. 28

Watercolor painting is a hugely popular art style that many people want to bring into their photos. An excellent image editing tool can satisfy your needs! Under this circumstance, you don't need to be a master artist to create such realistic watercolor effects for your photos. Therefore, we will recommend two different tools to help you convert any image into a hand-made watercolor painting.

I guess there is no one who doesn’t want to achieve watercolor painting effect with our recommended image editing tools. For example, we’ll show you an AI-generated watercolor painting image below using FlexClip’s advanced AI photo editor.

AI Watercolor Painting Example Photo - FlexClip

Moreover, there are many templates with watercolor style that can help you to display your watercolor style images better. Try it!

Preview

Wedding Save The Date Watercolor Floral Slideshow

Use This Template

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Flower Wedding Invitation Engraving Butterfly Benediction

Use This Template

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Watercolour Wedding

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Watercolor Flower Bridal Shower Invitation

Use This Template

Part 1 Online Way to Turn Photo into Watercolor Painting - FlexClip

As one of the most popular AI photo editing brands, FlexClip can be your better alternative to Photoshop to create a watercolor effect for images. It’s designed to be user-friendly and efficient, so you can achieve great results in a short amount of time. It allows you to create watercolor effect for any image without any editing experience.

Turn Photo into Watercolor Painting - FlexClip

AI photo editor converts photo into watercolor painting - Backed up by advanced AI technology, FlexClip’s AI photo editor allows you to turn any photos into watercolor painting as you like with ease. Even if you are new to AI, FlexClip’s simple interface can let you use this watercolor effect with lightning speed. You just need to upload your portrait and enter a text prompt about the watercolor effect you want to generate, then its strong AI will begin the creation automatically. FlexClip’s AI models like Google Nano Banana, Flux Kontext, OpenAI, and so on can precise convert your photo into watercolor painting while keeping the original characteristics. With its help, you can easily get an AI-generated watercolor painting effect photo as you need. The possibilities in FlexClip are endless.

AI Photo Editor - FlexClip

AI image to image generator converts photo into watercolor painting - FlexClip’s AI image to image generator will identify your uploaded image and transform it into an engaging watercolor style since powered by cutting-edge AI technology,. You can easily convert your photo to watercolor painting style with a few clicks. There are 3 different kinds of watercolor painting styles for you to choose from. Moreover, FlexClip also allows you to transform photos into another painting art styles, such as oil painting, sketch and so on. And the AI image to image generator is regularly updated with new styles and improvements, ensuring that you can catch up with the popular style transfer trend.

AI Image to Image Generator - FlexClip

Allow you to add frame or graphic elements to level up your image - FlexClip allows you to choose from its frame and elements library to level up your watercolor style. You can add special frames to decorate your watercolor style image. Moreover, you can choose different graphic element to fit the theme of your watercolor style image.

Frame & Elements Library - FlexClip

Method 1 Turn Photo into Watercolor Painting in FlexClip

Step 1

Enter FlexClip’s AI photo editor and upload a photo, and choose an AI model to begin your image creation, such as Google Nano Banana Pro.

Upload Photo - FlexClip

Step 2

Write the text prompts for the desired watercolor painting effect you want and tap the Generate button to begin AI creation. You can also adjust the ratio and resolution.

Write Prompts - FlexClip

Step 3

Check the AI-powered watercolor painting effect image result and see if you are happy with it. Download and share this new image according to your needs.

Download Photo - FlexClip

Method 2 Turn Photo into Watercolor Painting in FlexClip

Step 1

Upload your images from FlexClip’s AI image to image generator. Or you can try FlexClip’s images library to find the image that you want to convert into a watercolor painting style.

Upload Your Images - FlexClip

Step 2

Once uploaded, you can describe the image briefly to get more accurate results. Then, scroll down to find the Painting section, and you can select a favorite watercolor painting style you like. Hit the Generate button and wait for the magic to happen.

Add Watercolor Effect - FlexClip

Step 3

Once you’ve gotten the images in watercolor style, you can easily download them or share them on social media platforms. You can also use them to create your video slideshow in watercolor style.

Download Your Images - FlexClip

Part 2 Software to Turn Photo into Watercolor Painting - Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is an excellent tool that allows you to create watercolor effect for image on Mac and Windows. A range of Photoshop filters will produce the foundations of the effect, then the addition of a paper texture and deformation with watercolour Photoshop brushes add an extra level of realism to produce a convincing effect. Besides, once you have finished creating watercolor effect for image, you can also customize it for different social media.

Step 1

Open a photo in Photoshop and convert the image layer into a Smart Object. To do this, right-click over the layer and select Convert to Smart Object.

Step 2

Go to Filter > Filter Gallery and add the Dry Brush filter. Then, adjust the following settings: Brush Size: 10, Brush Detail: 10, Texture: 1.

Step 3

Go to Filter > Filter Gallery and add the Cutout filter. Then, adjust the following settings: Number of Levels: 7, Edge Simplicity: 4, Edge Fidelity: 1. Then, double-click the small icon to the right of the Smart Blur filter in the Smart Filters in the Layers panel. This brings up the Blending Options for that effect. Change the Blend mode to Screen and the Opacity to 50%.

Step 4

Go to Filter > Blur > Smart Blur and adjust the following settings: Radius: 100.0, Threshold: 100.0, Quality: High, Mode: Normal. Double-click the small icon to the right of the Find Edges filter in the Smart Filters in the Layers panel. This brings up the Blending Options for that effect. Change the Blend mode to Multiply and the Opacity to 80%.

Step 5

Go to Filter > Stylize > Find Edges. Double-click the small icon to the right of the Find Edges filter in the Smart Filters in the Layers panel. This brings up the Blending Options for that effect. Change the Blend mode to Multiply and the Opacity to 25%.

Step 6

The Bottom Line

Hope you’ve learned how to effortlessly create watercolor effect for image in Photoshop and its alternative - FlexClip. And FlexClip also provides many video/image creation functions for you to explore. Now, it’s your move!