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.

  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.)
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. With the Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer selected, merge it down: Layer>Merge Down or use the shortcut Ctrl+E.
  6. 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).
  7. Using the drop down box to the right, locate and select Sketch (in PSE) or from the Filter menu (in PS), locate Sketch>Stamp.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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

February 19, 2010 · Filed Under Photoshop

Comments

4 Responses to “Convert an Image to a Line Drawing”

  1. NIKITAKTAK on February 23rd, 2010 1:09 am

    Good design blog. Author fellow, will be your constant visitor. I learned many interesting thanks.

  2. Affectionate_beauty on March 2nd, 2010 11:57 pm

    In my opinion you stole this article and placed on another site. I had already seen.

  3. admin on March 3rd, 2010 10:54 pm

    If you read the beginning paragraph of this posting you will see that I noted where I had seen the first tutorial and gave credit to the original author. The second portion of the blog posting was my own work. It’s always possible that someone else had already discovered this same process, but the procedure I posted was my own work.

    Thanks!

  4. WP Themes on March 11th, 2010 11:38 pm

    Amiable brief and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you for your information.

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