Making Photos Look Like Sketches - 9/8/08

PCPhoto

Tip Of The Week Archive

Simple secrets to a dynamite drawing effect

By William Sawalich

This Article Features Photo Zoom

Before

There seem to be a million special effects filters in Photoshop, and they all do what they do very well, but sometimes they look a little too… generic. When it comes to making a photo look like a sketch, for example, readymade filters do a good job of offering a lot of options—filters like colored pencil, dry brush and smudge stick, all found under the Artistic section of the filters menu. To do a great job, no matter what effect you’re after, there’s nothing quite like a custom do-it-yourself approach.

My favorite DIY sketch effect goes like this: first, desaturate the image you’re working on. (As always you should first duplicate the file you want to work on in order to keep a pristine original, then desaturate the new image.) It helps if you’ve started with a contrasty shot, and if it’s not contrasty enough, feel free to boost it with contrast or levels controls before you begin. Once you’ve got a bold, desaturated (grayscale) image, duplicate it onto a new layer.

After

Next, invert the new layer and set the blending mode to Color Dodge. You’ll see a mostly white layer with a few black smudges on it. These smudges are crucial; in the next and last step they’ll become the lines of your sketch. To create those lines simply use the Gaussian Blur filter to enlarge the smudges. Adjust the radius, depending on the size of image you’re working on, until the effect you see is exactly how you’d like it. When you’re happy with the sketch look, flatten the layers and save the file.

For further tweaks you can also add grain to the image. I prefer to do it after blurring the top layer, but it can also be done before for a more subtle effect. Either way the additional texture helps make for a more interesting, sketch-like photograph. For an even different look, don’t desaturate the layers before you begin. The end result will have a slightly wild, colored pencil effect.