Photo to Sketch

I have been trying to teach myself PSE and have been playing around with turning photos into pencil sketches. I love this technique.
What do you think?

Ruth

First one is ehhh
I like the second one though. gives the Eiffel tower a new look

I really like the first one - and I would like to see it after brushing in some color.

Second one - well, it's a black and white of the Eiffel Tower. Doesn't do much for me. Keep at it, though, as these conversions can be really hit and miss.

Rad

Is this a plugin/filter in PSE or a manual technique?

I love pencil sketch alot. Sometimes the image works for sketch and sometimes not im my experience. A less busy background works best I think.

I have made some large pencil sketch of my daughter and grandkids and they turned out pretty nice. How much blur applied is the key for the sketch.

The tricky part is when going to print. I had thread on this and didnt get a single reply a couple months ago. So I just winged it. Used a white eyedropper to set the whites in bg (after I was done cloneing it)

Important thing, Change to Grayscale when you save it. If the colors are not
discarded sometimes you will get pinkish hues in the blacks , not true blacks. One more thing when PP, move your monitor some to see that you got all the cloned stuff out of background, sometimes monitor will fool you on different angles of viewing.

I had a local store try to print it and wasnt happy. Mpix did a fine job tho.

Hope some this helps, thanks for sharing

I used a manual technique from Matt Kloskowski at www.peachpit.com.

Open Photo
Duplicate layer
Desaturate photo - Ctrl U, drag saturation slider to left
Duplicate layer
Invert photo - Ctrl I
Change layer blend mode from Normal to Color Dodge
Filter > other > minimum - drag slider until image is pleasing to you.

Ruth

This is pretty cool Thanks for sharing.

Yes Ruth thats pretty much what I do. I use guas blur and adjust to taste.

If you print I would be interested in how it goes. I'm still experimenting off and on with sketching. I dont care for the watecolor effect one can get if you disable the desaturation layer. I suppose some type of image might lend to pencil sketch/water color, but I have yet to find one.

Thanks for sharing btw,

Chuck

You are welcome.
I have not tried printing yet. I can envision a photo sketch printed on art paper...I think it would look really neat. I have some flower and some architectural photos that I will try eventually.

Ruth

Have you ever used that method to produce color sketches that involves layer copies, find edges, overlay blend modes? I've had some good results with that one also.

I played around with the color sketch technique a little bit, but did not like my results. I need to spend more time on it. I do like some examples of this that I have seen.

Ruth

CannedHeat wrote in post #7702876
Have you ever used that method to produce color sketches that involves layer copies, find edges, overlay blend modes? I've had some good results with that one also.

No , I have not, but would be interested in seeing some for sure. Find edges, I have not tried that in long time. I forget the PP now.

hummingbird wrote in post #7702068
You are welcome.
I have not tried printing yet. I can envision a photo sketch printed on art paper...I think it would look really neat. I have some flower and some architectural photos that I will try eventually.

Ruth

Agree on art paper, that would look nice. Maybe canvas too. I have printed 11x14 on mountboard with Lustre finish from mpix and it turned out xlent.
The frame color choice I used was thin black metal from mpix. There frames are so pricey tho.

I want to try some canvas to see how it looks. Sketch provides a nice variant for clients. Some like it , some dont. I'm still looking to refine my PP on this quite a bit yet. I wish I would have started Photoshop like 20 years ago, instead of 5 years ago, its a huge program.

I used a manual technique from Matt Kloskowski at www.peachpit.com.

I'll have to try that. I've never been happy with the canned methods.