GIMP Version: 2.8.2
Operating System: Windows
OS Version: XP - SP3
GIMP Experience: Beginner Level

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With all the plugins / scripts availables concerning to turn a photo in a comic or a cartoon, I'm wondering which one do you use or prefer ?
If you don't use them but rather in a manual way, how do you proceed ?

Personally, I have to illustrate internal newsletter for my colleagues on the topic of superheroes, we have taken some photography with costumes but I'm not very convinced by my tests.

I would like to highlight the contours of people in the photo, smoothing the edges and make the colors a little less natural. Unfortunately, the results are often differents from one photo to another.

Just today G'MIC released, 'Colors / Recolorize'. Desaturate your image and maybe give it a go. There's a couple of good examples in this thread. There are a couple of more similar ones in G'MIC including some in experimental by samj.

I use mostly my Gmic filters (Graphic Novel , Graphic Boost and in BW ink Wash )

I did much more but the first 2 are for me sort of swiss knife , are very powerful and flexible

Alas flexible means also that they may offers gazillions of very different effects and since GMIC doesn't support Filter "preset" (it sort of does but just a couple of dozens of preset are sufficient to screw up the filter list ) it is a bit hard give a guide to the different FX

Ink wash is the most simple and intutive to use , result will be BW but you may use later the original image to recolor

A very different but cool effect come to Cartoonizer script (somewhere on the registry , it was also a topic here in plugin board with many example )

I have not found a cartoon script yet that I am totally happy with the results. I find they all have too many black spots all over where I want only outlines to be black. I have tried doing it manually, and get better results but it is very difficult and tedious. Some of the cartooning scripts are "ok" but not quite what I wish.

My favorite

The bulk of the effect is accomplished by creating a duplicate layer and setting its blend mode to "Value", then running the "Colors->Retinex" filter on the duplicate with a Scale of "16" and a Dynamic "0.1"