Convert an Image to a Line Drawing
This tutorial was the result of a request by one of my Community Ed. students. He was in need of a way to convert images to line or pencil drawings for his business. I did a little research and came across one tutorial that produces fairly good results. Then I spent some time playing with Photoshop and devised another method of my own.
The original tutorial was created by Mark Clarkson and is titled “Photoshop Pixels to Pencil Drawings”. Visit this link to see Mark’s original tutorial: http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/drawing/
I took the liberty of condensing, modifying and clarifying a few of the steps of the tutorial as follows:
1. Open your photograph in Photoshop and crop or resize it as necessary.
2. Make the image B/W.
(If you are starting with a black and white photo, you can skip this step.)
- Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturate or click on the Create Adjustment Layer icon at the top of the Layers palette and select Hue/Saturation from the menu.
- When the Hue/Saturation dialog opens, slide the Saturation slider all the way to the left, this will remove all color from the photo, resulting in a B/W image
- With the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer selected, merge it down: Layer>Merge Down or use the shortcut Ctrl+E.
3. Duplicate the B/W image to a New Layer
- Click and drag the original image onto the Create a New Layer icon at the top of the palette, or use the shortcut Ctrl+J (Layer via Copy).
- Rename this layer to New Layer.
4. Invert the colors of the New Layer
- With the New Layer selected, press Ctrl+I to invert the colors in the photo.
(Your photo will look like a negative.)
5. Set the Blending Mode to Color Dodge.
Change the blending mode of the New Layer, by choosing Color Dodge from the blend modes drop-down list at the top of the Layers palette. Color Dodge lightens the underlying image. Because the two layers contain opposite versions of the same image, they cancel each other out. The results will be pure white, or nearly so.
6. Apply Gaussian Blur
- Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur
- Drag the slider to the right to increase the blur amount and the outlines of your image will begin to appear. The amount of blur you need depends on your particular image. The greater the blur, the wider and darker the lines and shadows will become.
- The Motion Blur, Radial Blur, and Blur More filters give nice results too. Your results will vary depending on the image you are using.
- You can also try changing the Blending Mode from Color Dodge to Linear Dodge and see what kind of result you get.
7. Burn and Dodge
- You can stop here, or you can use the Burn Tool (used to darken) and Dodge Tool (used to lighten) to selectively lighten and darken areas of your image.
- Burn and Dodge on the New Layer only, not on the background layer.
- Keep in mind that the Dodging and Burning processes are permanent irreversible actions.
Here are the before and after images that resulted from the above tutorial. For this conversion, I used a pixel setting of 10 for the Gaussian blur step. I did not use any dodging or burning.
The second set of images of the dog are from a conversion I did using the same process. With this image, I used the dodge and burn options to enhance some of the areas. I felt this process did a much better job on this particular image than the first image.
The processes involved in this tutorial gave me an idea and after much playing with Photoshop I came up with the following tutorial which I feel gives somewhat varied results, depending on your needs and the image you are using.
I’ll title this tutorial “Convert an Image to a Line Drawing”. I wrote this tutorial primarily for PSE, but have made notations for PS users as well.
- Open your photograph in Photoshop and crop or resize it as necessary.
- Make the image B/W.
(If you are starting with a black and white photo, you can skip this step.) - Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation or click on the Create Adjustment Level icon at the top of the Layers palette and select Hue/Saturation from the menu.
- When the Hue/Saturation dialog box opens, slide the Saturation slider all the way to the left, this will remove all color from the photo, resulting in a B/W image. Click OK.
- With the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer selected, merge it down: Layer>Merge Down or use the shortcut Ctrl+E.
- Open the Effects palette (in PSE) and click on the first icon at the top of the panel to select Filters, or go to the Filters menu (in PS).
- Using the drop down box to the right, locate and select Sketch (in PSE) or from the Filter menu (in PS), locate Sketch>Stamp.
- In PSE locate Stamp in the list and either double-click it, or click on it once and click Apply at the bottom of the palette.
- A dialog box will open and you can adjust the image using the Light/Dark Balance and Smoothness sliders. Keep in mind that the white lines you see will eventually be your black outlines. When you are done making adjustments, click OK. You can also try using Photocopy from the Sketch group instead of Stamp. Your results will vary depending on your image.
- If there are unwanted black areas you can always paint over these on separate layer. Create a new blank layer, by clicking on the New Layer icon. Make sure your colors are set to White foreground and Black background. Select your Paint Brush and paint on the blank layer above your image. If you make mistakes here, you can always use the eraser to remove excess paint strokes.
Here are the examples of the car image converted first using the Stamp Effect option and the second using the Photocopy Effect option.
Photoshop Pixels to Pencil Drawings
Black & White Conversions using Photoshop
There are several different ways to convert images to B/W using Photoshop and I would like to share these methods with you as well as showing side by side comparisons of the end results. I have converted the same image to black and white using each method outlined below. See the images at the bottom of the page for comparison.
Method 1 – Image Mode Conversion
The first method is very simple, but generally does not produce good results. You simply change the mode of the image from RGB to Grayscale. This is done by the following steps: Image>Mode>Grayscale. The resulting image tends to be rather flat and even though this is an easy conversion, it is not one that I use or would recommend.
Method 2 – Desaturate
This method is just as easy as the Image Mode Conversion method. Simply follow these steps: Image>Adjustments>Desaturate. Again, this produces an image that is fairly flat and allows you no control over the outcome of the image.
Method 3 – Black & White Adjustment Layer
This method gives you much better control over the outcome of your image. 
To begin, click on the Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of your layer panel, then select Black & White from the menu. From this point you can adjust the level of each color tone in your image using the sliders. The major adjustments I made to this photo were the Blues slider, to darken the background somewhat and the Reds and Yellows sliders to brighten the face of the infant. Pay attention to the colors in your original image and adjust the appropriate sliders based on those colors.
Method 4 – Gradient Map & Channel Mixer Adjustment Layers
I recently viewed a tutorial using this method and found it to be very effective and provides good control over the outcome of your image.
Start by making sure you have your colors set to black as the foreground and white as the background then create a Gradient Map adjustment layer in the same manner as the previous method. Then create another adjustment layer using Channel Mixer as your menu choice. Before making any adjustments in the Channel Mixer panel, be sure to check the Monochrome box. The Channel Mixer has sliders similar to the Black & White adjustment layer, with the exception that you are strictly adjusting the RGB colors. The really nice thing about using the Channel Mixer adjustment is that it allows you to mask over portions of the image that may become too bright due to your slider adjustments. You’ll notice in this example I have masked over the entire image except for the infant’s face. This leaves the background darker and brightened the face area. Since the infant’s face is the focal point of the image, this is a definite improvement in overall appearance of the image.
Method 5 – Hue/Saturation & Levels Adjustment Layers
This is my preferred method of converting an image to B/W.
Start by adding a Hue & Saturation adjustment layer. Slide the Saturation slider all the way to the left, this completely desaturates the image. Then add a Levels adjustment layer and make adjustments to the histogram by sliding the black, white and gray set points. If necessary, you can also mask your levels adjustments in certain areas that may become too hot or blown out. With some images I will also add a Curves adjustment layer to increase the contrast in the image. I added a Curves adjustment to this image and also masked the infant’s face.
Any of the last three methods could be used with great results depending on the type of image you are converting. Try each method to see what works best for you!
Here is the original image:
Below are the resulting images from each of the methods described above.
Photoshop Preferences & Settings – part 2
Last week I made it through the information concerning the Preferences in PS. This week I will be addressing the Settings portion of the tutorial. I found this part of the tutorial much more interesting and useful.
Menus & Shortcuts
Did you realize that you can customize the menus in PS? I had no idea! Just go to Edit>Menus and PS lets you turn off the visibility of nearly any item in each of the menus.
So if there are filters you never use or other options on menus that you have no use for, you can get them out of your way. Sweet huh? These changes will create a new Set defined as Photoshop Defaults (Modified) and you’ll see this in the Set drop down menu. Don’t worry about messing things up in PS, because you can always revert to the original PS menus by selecting the “Photoshop Defaults” Set from the drop down menu and this will restore everything to how it was originally. You can also temporarily see all options on menus while working in PS by either going to File>Show All Menu Items or by Ctrl clicking the individual menu. The really great thing about this is you can save your “preset” menu options as a Set. This would allow you to toggle back and forth between your Modified Menu Set and the PS Default Menu Set. Even if you don’t save your Modified Menus as a Set, they will remain as the default whenever you open PS.
The same options are available for all Panel Menus. If you check out the other drop down box labeled “Menu For”, you’ll see you have the option to make changes to the Panel Menus.
If you notice the name of this dialog box is called “Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus”, so you guessed it, you can make changes to your shortcuts here as well. Check out the tabs at the top and you’ll see one labeled “Keyboard Shortcuts”.
Making changes to your keyboard shortcuts or creating new shortcuts is a little trickier. The main issue with shortcuts is that PS already has so many built in that it is tough to find an available set of key combinations to use for a new shortcut. You can select to make shortcuts for Application Menus, Panel Menus and Tools using the drop down box. If you have a menu that you use over and over in PS you may want to consider creating a new shortcut for it. Let’s say you use Gaussian Blur constantly in your work and would like to access it more quickly. Go to the Filter section of the shortcuts and click on the Gaussian Blur line to highlight it. An open box will appear for you to insert the key combination you would like to use. You do this by using the key combination, not by typing it in the open box. The recommendations from the tutorial are to use the F keys in combination with either Ctrl or Alt for new shortcuts. I chose to use Alt + F1 for my new shortcut to Gaussian Blur. The other option is to look at the menus in PS and find a shortcut currently being used by another menu item that you never use. When you attempt to use that key combination for your new shortcut, PS will warn you that this shortcut is already in use and ask you if would you like to override it. You’ll notice that as soon as you make a change to or add a new shortcut that the Set becomes Modified. Here again you can choose to save the new modified Set, or revert back to the Default Set.
Workspaces
If you get annoyed each time you open PS because it has panels open that you don’t need and the ones you do need you have to go to the Window menu each time and reopen them, then you are probably using PS’s Default Workspace. You can customize what panels are open each time you start PS by saving a new workspace. Simply get all the panels set up the way you want them, including how they are arranged from top to bottom in the panel docking area. Then go to Window>Workspace>Save Workspace and give your workspace a name. You can select to save Panel Locations, Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus by using the check boxes.
If you wanted to you could set up a separate workspace to fit the different ways you use Photoshop.
Tool Presets
This part of the tutorial was the most exciting as far as I was concerned. They demonstrated a way to cut down on constantly having to adjust the settings on tools like brushes or the text tool. If you use a particular font at a consistent size and color, you can make a tool preset for that. Basically what you are doing is setting up a “style” for text that you use on a regular basis.
Here’s an example:
Set a brush size, opacity and flow for the Clone stamp. Then click on the drop down arrow on the tool icon in the options bar and click on the “create new tool preset” icon. Name the new preset accordingly and save.
These presets can also be accessed via the Window menu>Tool Presets. This will open a palette with the presets for the specific tool, or for all tools if you uncheck the “Current Tool” check box at the bottom of the panel.
To use your presets remember to first select the tool, select the preset from the drop down, then start using the tool.
Brushes and Shapes
Creating new brushes – make a new document in grayscale, best to use black image on a white background.
Defining a new shape – it’s best to start from a vector image (in Illustrator), making sure to convert any text to outlines. Also, any open areas should be created as cut-outs in Illustrator. Create the image, then copy and paste it into PS, selecting “shape layer” from the paste options, then go to Edit>Define Custom Shape and give it a name and save. Then to use the new shape, select it from your custom shape tool, select the new shape from the menu, and decide if you are going to use it as a shape layer, a path or fill pixels.
Swatches and Styles
Adding specific colors to your swatches palette is pretty simple. Use the eyedropper to select the color from an image, click on the Swatches panel and click on the “create new swatch” icon. This will add the color to your Swatches panel. You can double click on this new color and give it a name.
Create your own style – if you use a specific drop shadow and bevel on a lot of things you can set up a style for that in the Styles panel. Apply the specific styles to a layer, then go to the Styles panel and click on the “create new style” icon at the bottom of the Styles panel, give it a name and save it.
That pretty much sums up the tutorial. Hopefully you found some tips and tricks to help you speed up your Photoshop work. Happy PSing!
Photoshop Preferences & Settings
For my first week I figured I should start with the basics in my learning of Photoshop. I’ve never really spent much time understanding the preferences and settings of the program. So today I spent most of the afternoon watching a series of tutorials on Kelbytraining.com titled “Customizing Photoshop” by Dave Cross and taking notes. For those of you who are not familiar with Kelby Training, it is a website that is dedicated to providing education for creatives. It is available only by subscription at $199/yr. unless you are an NAPP member, then the cost is $179/yr.
Ok, on to what I learned in my 3-4 hours of watching the tutorials and taking notes. I’m not going to repeat each item they covered in the tutorial, only items that I found helpful and had never used before. I should also mention that I work in PS CS4 and some of the items I mention may not be available in previous versions of PS.
First you need to know how to access your preferences in PS. Go to the Edit menu>Preferences>General.
Under the General section, the only item of interest to me was the ability to set up the scroll wheel to zoom in and out of an image. This might be a little annoying when you are trying to scroll up and down.
The next section was Interface and the one thing I found interesting here was the option to turn off “Tool Tips”, which at times can be annoying when you already know what each tool is called.
In File Handling you can turn off “Enable Version Cue” if you don’t have that program.
Performance is something I have used before to adjust the number of History states PS will hold for you while you are working, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Caution should be used when adjusting this preference. Too many History states will cause your computer to run slowly since it uses RAM to store the History as you work. The default of 20 history states is usually sufficient.
Cursors are pretty standard, although I thought it might be nice to have a cross hair in my brush tip when painting.
Transparency gives you the option to change the appearance of the grey and white grid. A good point they made in the tutorial was to change this to grey and another color, such at pink or red, if you are working with white text. It can be difficult to see the text on a transparent layer otherwise.
Units & Rulers allow you to set the default measurements of your rulers and text. I prefer to have my rulers and text set to pixels.
Guides & Grids lets you change colors of your guides and grids depending on what is appealing to your eye. But the most important thing I got from this section is the ability to turn off those pesky slices numbers. If you inadvertently select the slice tool you will get a slice number in the upper left hand corner of your document, and no matter what you do it won’t go away. Turn this option off and you won’t have to worry about that anymore. Of course if you slice images for use on the internet, you will want this option turned on.
Type options included a nice feature that those of us with vision problems will appreciate. You can change the size of the display of the fonts in the drop down list.
So that summarizes what I found interesting in the Preferences section of the tutorial. Next week I’ll cover other helpful settings within PS.
My PS Favorites
Here is a list of the Photoshop sites I visit regularly to view tutorials and download plugins. I will update this list as I find new sites to visit.
PS Download Sites
Action Central http://www.atncentral.com/
Adobe Exchange http://share.studio.adobe.com
Free Photoshop http://www.freephotoshop.com
Free Photoshop Brush Viewer http://abrviewer.sourceforge.net
Lunacore http://www.lunacore.com/
Mis-Printed Type Brushes http://www.misprintedtype.com/v3/goodies.php
Miss M Paper Lilies http://www.missm.paperlilies.com
PanosFX http://www.panosfx.com/
Photoshop Brushes http://www.photoshopbrushes.com/
Photoshop Roadmap http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/Photoshop-downloads
Shop the ArtStore http://www.shoptheartstore.com
Sketchpad http://www.sketchpad.net
The Plugin Site http://www.thepluginsite.com
PS Tutorial Sites
Absolute Cross http://www.absolutecross.com/tutorials
Good Tutorials http://www.good-tutorials.com
Photoshop Tutorials http://photoshoptutorials.ws/
Photoshop Box http://www.photoshopbox.com
PhotoshopTV http://www.photoshopusertv.com/
Photoshop Support http://www.photoshopsupport.com/
PS Lover http://www.pslover.com
Tutorialized – Photoshop http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Photoshop/1
WebTekNique http://www.webteknique.net
First week of discovery
Ok, so I didn’t spend last Friday educating myself on the programs of my trade. Instead, I visited a local high school career day and enlightened some students about the great job I have and what it takes to become a graphic/website designer. It was a fun day, and the kids asked some really great questions.
The discovery I made was in taking a good hard look at what it took me to get where I am today. In preparation for the day with students I reviewed my education, the skills I acquired during and since leaving school, starting and building my business, making business contacts to build a network of potential client sources, and the continuing need to learn my ever-changing trade.
I realized I have worked hard to get where I am now, that I will need to continue to work hard and educate myself in order to stay competitive in today’s market, and how lucky I am to have found a profession that still excites me everyday. I also discovered how much I love talking about my job and letting people know that I love what I do. I really do look forward to going to work each morning to see what new challenge awaits me.
Hopefully this Friday I will be able to post information concerning the things this blog is all about. Now back to the work at hand!
Welcome to my blog!
Ok, I’m gonna have a go at this blogging thing. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some interesting stuff here to keep you coming back for more. Each week this year I am going to spend at least part, if not all of my day on Fridays learning more about the programs I use everyday in my work. These include Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, and Illustrator. My intent is to share the tips and tricks I learn about each of these programs with anyone who needs or wants them.
If you have specific topics of interest that you would like to hear about, please feel free to let me know. I may have insight into particular areas of the programs and will be able to help you immediately. I’ll be posting links to tutorials I find or creating them myself for you to download.
My hope is first, to further educate myself, therefore becoming more proficient at my trade, and second, to share my knowledge with others.
I hope you enjoy my blog and will comment on my postings if you find them useful.
Enjoy!
Monica