This photoshop tutorial will present you simple steps on how to make WPAP in Photoshop. WPAP is originally created and introduced by an Indonesian, Wedha Abdul Rasyid, early in the 1990s. WPAP stands for Wheda’s Pop Art Portrait. WPAP is also known as Geometric Portrait. This kind of effect has quite a lot of buffs worldwide. WPAP effect is nearly similar to Pop Art effect, but not exactly the same. This kind of effect has quite a lot of buffs.
WPAP or Pop Art is a portrait illustration technique with pop-ups dominance of flat fields formed by imaginary lines such as triangles, rectangles, trapezoids, rhombus, and rectangles. In which, it’s color-rich on the front, middle, and back, so as to form dimensions. There is no limit to the WPAP technique as this technique is a creative tracing technique and tends to be an imaginative pattern game. Here we are going to discover the secret of how to create a WPAP in Photoshop. You can use whether Photoshop CS3, CS4, CS5, CS6, or CC+. Here I use Adobe Photoshop CS6.
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Photoshop Tutorial – How to Make WPAP in Photoshop
WPAP Tips
To make WPAP, it’s recommended that you first set the colors your WPAP trackings to grayscale (black and white). The reason is the grayscale consists of black and white colors that help you know the dark and light areas of the face area. After tracking with the grayscale mode, then, you will be easy to determine which color you should paint to a certain area.
Actually, you can also directly use the colors in making the WPAP (as this tutorial). Using colors to the WPAP directly is usually done by WPAP experts. If you are new in WPAP art, you should learn by making it grayscale first. Then, change it to colors.
Step 1: Remove the Photo’s Background
You can use Magic Wand Tool (W) or Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) to select the background area. Then, press delete.

Step 2: Add a New Layer before the Original Photo Layer
Add a new layer before the original photo layer, then give it a white color. This will be useful to see the temporary results of your WPAP effect.
Step 3: WPAP Tracking
As I mentioned in the WPAP tips, I didn’t use grayscale to make the WPAP. I’m not really expert in WPAP, but let’s take a look the result of my WPAP without setting it first to grayscale mode. For tracking WPAP in photoshop, I started it from the eyes using Pen Tool (P). You may also start it elsewhere you want. Enable Pen Tool (P) with shape mode and color as you want, as this color is only temporary before replacing it with the original WPAP color. Before starting the starting point of the shape, hide the white layer.
Track the WPAP using Pen Tool (P) on the ever area of the photo.
Then, after making some shape points, reduce the opacity layer to 40%. This way is useful to make it easier for you to determine the next layer point. The, continue the same tracking in the other areas.
Keep continuing tracking the WPAP areas, until when you no longer need to determine the borders of every area, you can increase the opacity of all of WPAP areas to 100%. Take a look at the picture below to see how it looks when I change the opacity back to 100% for all of the WPAP area layers.

Step 4: Merge All Layers
Make sure all of the areas have been given WPAP colors. Add or change a certain’s area color to get the best artistic result of yours. Take a look at my WPAP work, all of the areas have been given colors. Then, merge all layers.
Step 5: Modify the Background
Now, this is optional. You may want to add some artworks to the background of your WPAP photo. Use you best of imagination to make a stunning background to your WPAP artwork. You should create the background separately from the main layer. This way is to enable you changing the background easily. Before you start creating the drawings to the background, create a new layer to the base of your artwork to the background.
At this step, we are going to adjust the WPAP colors to become more consistent. Change the WPAP colors of your photo by using Color Balance function. Color Balance will help you create a nice WPAP colors just by raising or lowering the color balance. Activate the Color Balance window can be clicking scale icon under the adjustment session.
You can adjust the color balance as you want. This way is useful to make WPAP becomes more stunning. Below is my final result.
That’s all the 6 simple steps Photoshop tutorial on how to make WPAP in Photoshop. It’s the result of making WPAP without setting it first to grayscale mode. But in other time, I would like to show you how to make WPAP in photoshop by setting the WPAP areas first to grayscale mode.
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Hopefully, this tutorial useful for you for Photoshop learning to improve your image editing skills. To make WPAP effect, do not worry to track the geometric areas. The more often you practice making WPAP, the better the artistical result. Thanks, for reading this post, if you have something meaningful to share, don’t be hesitate to comment on the comment box below.