My friend Matt, who has left NY for Alabama, but is still here in spirit! Boo!

The cool thing is you can do this with about any photo with areas of contrast. For this tutorial I’ll be modifying my headshot in these three simple steps:

Step 1

Find a photo you like and crop it to the size you want. It’s really that simple.

Step 2

In Photoshop, go to Image>Adjustments>Threshold

Modify the threshold until you have your desired areas of light and dark. Attempt to leave strong outlines of negative space while maintaining the original look of the photograph.

Step 3

You’re almost there! Finally, to clean up the photo go to Filter>Artistic>Palette Knife and adjust the stroke thickness until you have strong blocks of black space.  You can erase any stray marks that don’t ad to the effect and you should end up with something like this

Congrats you’ve created your Pumpkin carving template!

Carving the pumpkin (or the Unofficial Step 4, also known as the coolest part of the process).

Prep: Cut a hole in the top of your pumpkin and scoop out all the crazy sci-fi looking innards. Save the seeds and bake them with oil and salt for a tasty treat, or just junk the gunk. Really give the sides a good scraping, as this is what’ll give your pumpkin its golden glow.

If you’ve done the job right, your hands will be icky, so wash them and wipe down the face of the pumpkin.

Print out your template on a full sheet of paper and tape it to your pumpkin (it keeps the template from moving on you).

Carving Tips

You’re going to carve out the black areas on the template so use a knife/screwdriver/icepick or other moderately sharp small object to punch indentations around the black areas of the template. This will be your guide for the actual carving. Once you’ve marked the template on your pumpkin, remove the paper.

Now you can start carving. I’d recommend using a small pocket knife, or pumpkin saw. With bigger knives it’s difficult to be precise. Don’t punch the pumpkin pieces out until you have gone over the entire design with your knife/saw as a pumpkin can be pretty fragile. Finally once you’ve cut the entire design, you can use a screwdriver/small blunt object/your fingers to punch out the design. Add a lit candle, turn off the lights, and voila – it’s magical!

To see the pumpkin carving process in action, you check out the video in my last post!

Happy Halloween!