Photoshop Question from: Dining Review magazine

Photo into a Sketch

Do you know how I can turn a Photo into a Sketch 
or line drawing ? in Phootoshop 4 for mac 
Thanks, Mike

Yes!
Solutions to this question abound and all you have to do is snoop around. Almost all of the books on Photoshop (for graphics, drawing or painting) will have sections on various filters and their uses to generate fine arts techniques. Look in the Gallery Effects library (shipping with the later versions of Photoshop) and check out the steel etch filter, the charcoal, and I believe there's even a "sketch" filter. These work wonderfully, and although you may need to do a considerable amount of trial and error they can produce very nice results.

If you are unable to access any of these filters, then you'll have to do it the hard way. Start with contrast and levels, eliminating as much of the tonality as you dare. Trace Edges (or "Find Edges" ) filters will help you begin to isolate the essential parts of the image for your simulated sketching. Be sure to duplicate the image and keep layers of the various versions as you boil down the image. I believe you'll want to use a combination of the resulting versions in the final piece.

If you're simulating pencil or charcoal, converting the image to Grayscale will be the last operation(s) after rendering the image down to pure lines. For a pen and ink effect, setting the layers to hard light and finishing up as a high contrast Grayscale will be the key in eliminating all but the strongest lines in the art.

Hey... here's an idea -- how about a feathered pencil tool, or a very tiny feathered brush and actually trace the image on a new layer. Be creative. You'll find the tools very forgiving, and your results could be stunning. Many people think they can't do it, but they can!

Be sure to take a look at Bert Monroy or Sharron Steuer's books in our Photoshop Bibliography" you'll get a lot of really cool artistly effects you can do real easily.
:-)

PS: If anyone would like to share their techniques with our readers, we'd love to hear from you. Just let us know!

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