Ever wondered how to make realistic line drawings in Photoshop? Unless you have one of those nifty tablets, it’s a time consuming process–but not anymore! I’ll walk you through the steps of turning a photo into a line drawing so you have consistent results every time. It’s quick and easy, and it works for any subject matter–from people to architecture.
The conversion process is really simple, but you want to make sure you have a good photo to work with–overexposure and clipping will make a difference on this one, so high-contrast photos are not ideal. I’m just using a stock photo for this example, so find a fav image and follow along!
With your original photo, double click on the background layer and hit enter–this allows you to edit the image.
You’ll want to make 2 copies of the layer by either holding down Alt and dragging the layer above or below the original, or by right clicking on the layer and choosing Duplicate Layer.
Set the top layer’s blend mode to “Color Dodge” in the layer’s palette. The rest of the effects will be applied to the top layer as well.
Then invert the layer by hitting Ctrl/Command + I and go to Filter > Gaussian Blur. A dialog box will open up. The desired radius will depend on the image resolution, so play around a bit to see the difference (make sure the preview option is checked).
Once you apply the gaussian blur you just have to set the image mode to black and white (Image > Adjustments > Black and White in CS3 is a quick way to do it). To further enhance the effect, make sure the top layer is selected and choose Fill in the layers palette and adjust accordingly. Voila–you’ve got a line drawing!
You can integrate the drawings into collages, header images… the possibilities are endless. Here’s another line drawing sample from a photo I took (I liked the colored pencil effect so I kept the color):
Related Media
Comments
10.16.09
… I also find myself torn between the coffee shop and my dual monitor setup
11.04.09
May I suggest ABR Viewer as an alternative to loading and trying each brush in Photoshop? It’s free, and I use it regularly. You may find this a great time-saving alternative!
http://abrviewer.sourceforge.net/
Hope it helps!
11.04.09
Thanks for the referral, Cyndi! I’ll have to spend some time tonight trying it out.
02.11.10
I love you to pieces man!!
10.14.10
I wished and wished for a Mac, then was given one at work.
So I moved all my files over.
I HATE it. I’m a designer. I have about 50 folders for 50 different projects. I name the banner psd “banner.psd” for all of them. Try and search for them all, yeah the Mac finds them but then you have to do “get info” for each one (or change some such setting and still click on each to see where the dang thing is located. On windows. I glanced at the path to the folder and voila. Yeah changing permissions on Vista is a headache but it’s far better than the constant problems I have on the Mac. Photoshop is twitchy at best, the thing crashes, although my Roku, PS3, Wii, personal laptop all do fine with my wirless, the mac drops it all the time. I use multiple monitors. Oh my god what idiot thought of leaving the application menu on one screen when the application is on another? You can only choose one little sprout because Steve Jobs knows better than you how you should work.
can’t wait to ditch it.
sorry tirade over.
ps tons of free windows applications out there.
11.26.10
Um… how about not naming all of your files the same name? Sounds more like an organizational issue than an operating system issue, either way.
I might recommend using an identifier and THEN _banner.psd? I assume it’d be difficult to find photos as well if every picture on a drive had its own folder and was named “photo.jpg”.
Examples:
Projectname_size_banner.psd
Clientname_size_banner.psd
etc…
04.17.11
Ok, so… I’m a total newbie to photoshop. I have CS5 and a brickton of brushes. I have tried renaming them, but they do NOT show up in the list like I want them to. I’ve played around with it for like a half hour. Can anyone please help?