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A client of mine saw "Waking Life", a film by Richard Linklater which was shot using live actors and then the footage was treated with a proprietary software that gave it a cartoon look. Check out Waking Life's official website to see images and video samples.

I tried several things, including using Boris Cartooner, find edges, adjusting hue/saturation, levels, median (which worked quite well), minimax, and several combinations of the above filters. I tried Video Gogh and the effect just wasn't right. The best results came with exporting a filmstrip from AE and treating it with a series of filters in Photoshop.

The look I created is not exactly like the film... well, okay, it's not even that close. I did not have the time or the budget to rotoscope each frame. Honestly, though, I think it looks pretty cool. Okay, now that I've lowered your expectations, here's the tutorial.

Notes:

• A good overall understanding of Photoshop. This isn't a Photoshop tutorial.
• wakinglife.zip project includes the Photoshop Actions only. I did not include the project file because it depends so much on your footage.
• Any version of After Effects should work. I used AE 5.5 for the tutorial, so this is the version to which I am referring.
• Some video footage - I would recommend 2-3 seconds to get going. Footage that is flatly lit with simple detail works the best (no paisley wallpaper). The video and filmstrip are not included in the download because they are huge.

This is a short piece
of what your filmstrip
may look like when you
view it in Photoshop

Export your video from AE to a Filmstrip

This might be something totally new to you, so I'll take you through it gently.

1. Bring your footage into After Effects and select an area that is 2-3 seconds in duration.
2. Render your footage using the following settings: Best quality and full resolution, and make sure your video is 29.97 or 30 fps for NTSC and 25 for PAL or SECAM.
3. Output Module: Format: Filmstrip. Video Output: RGB, Millions of colors. The file will have a .flm extension.
4. Render and quit AE if you need to free up some memory for Photoshop.

Treat your filmstrip in Photoshop:

1. If you are a pro with actions, or at least know what you're doing, simply open the action in your Actions palette in Photoshop and skip to step 4. If you don't know how to get the actions going, please read steps 2 and 3.
2. If you have not downloaded the project file yet, now is the time. To install the action that is called "Waking Life Look.atn", put it someplace important. I keep all of my Photoshop actions in a folder called "Actions", which I put in the "Presets" folder inside the Photoshop application folder. You can put it wherever you like, it's just a good idea to keep your world organized. Better Feng Shui.
3. In Photoshop, open the "Actions" palette. If you don't see it open, go to Window > Actions. On the Actions palette, you'll see a little arrow on the upper right of the palette. Choose "Load Actions" from the list, and proceed to find the "Waking Life Look.atn" file.
4. 
   Actions: The Play Button is highlighted in pink.
   Look at Waking Life Look action. The action file contains two actions - one that will create flat colored images, and one that creates black outlines. I will explain more about each of these as we get to them.
5. Open your filmstrip in Photoshop. Now, hopefully you heeded my advice and allocated lots of memory to Photoshop if you are able, and you also kept your clip to 2-3 seconds. This file is big! Zoom in if you like to have a look at the individual frames.
6. Select the "Flatten Color" action under Waking Life Look and press the play button. The first thing it will do is duplicate your filmstrip file so that you'll end up with two versions of this file. The action is set up so that it stops to ask you about which settings you would like for Smart Blur, Gaussian Blur and Unsharp Mask. The defaults are set to a low setting, but I'd recommend turning them up a bit. This will take a while, so sit back, relax and meditate or something.
7. When it's done going through the action, save the file as a filmstrip file with the name "XXX-color.flm", the XXX being the name of your file. Close it.
8. Select the untreated filmstrip image and apply the "Black and White Outline" action. This action applies a photocopy and stamp effect to your filmstrip to give it a fat black outline with very little detail. This one does not stop so that you can adjust the settings, so if you do want to adjust something, check the checkbox next to the parameter and the next time you run the action it will stop for you.
9. When it's done going through the action, save the file as a filmstrip file with the name "XXX-bw.flm". Close it, and close Photoshop while you're at it

Putting it all together

1. Back in After Effects, import your two treated files - the color and the black and white file. If it brings up the alpha channel dialog box, check the "ignore alpha" box.
2. If you click and play either of the files in the project window, they are not in the filmstrip formatted look anymore. They come back into AE frame by frame. Now isn't that just the cat's meow!
3. Create a new comp with both the color and black and white files. Put the Black and white file on top. Set the transfer control to "color burn".
4. Create a new adjustment layer and apply "Posterize Time" (Effect > Time > Posterize Time). I set it to 15 to give it a more jumpy look. If you wish, you can also interpret the footage at 15 fps to slow it down, or crank it up to 60 to speed it up.

Other tricks to try

1. If you own Twixtor, you might want to try it here. If you save the video at 5 fps and tween between the frames, you get that "slidey" loose look that they used in the movie.
2. Mess with the actions and play, play, play! Try other plug-ins and filters, too.
3. Use paint to add fun things in the background, like they did in the movie.