I have been toying with taking a portrait and turning it into a realistic pencil like sketch. I have tried the technique with smart blur and find edges, poster edge etc., but I'm still not thrilled with the result. I found a nice tutorial using another method I thought I would share with you:

REALISTIC PENCIL SKETCHES
Create realistic pencil sketches from color photographs quick and easy.
Step one: This is an easy method for rendering realistic looking pencil sketches from photographs. It works best on even toned photographs. Open an image file that you want to convert to a pencil sketch. Use your favorite photo or scan an image into Photoshop.

Step two: Make a duplicate layer, then with the copy layer active, select Image/Adjust/inverse. Next select Image/Mode/Grayscale and don’t flatten the image.

Step three: Go to the layers palette and change the Blend Mode of the Copy layer to Color Dodge. The image will disappear. Don’t worry, it’s still there. Let’s bring it back. Select Filter/Blur/ Gaussian Blur and apply a blur radius between 2.5 and 3.5 for a natural looking pencil sketch. Adjust higher or lower for your own taste.
(My comment: you might want to go to Levels to adjust a little.)

I tried the above method out and here is the result. This one looks more like a charcol sketch as I used a level adjustment when I was finished.

Lisa

I forgot to add the link
http://forums.about.com/ab-graphicssoft/messages?lgnF=y&tid=2662

Lisa

Wow, that looks great Lisa. Thanks for the tip.
DJ

Thanks - I'm still working on refining it. I just discovered that if you use a lower Gaussian Blurr setting say 3.5 + the image appears to be very light but the outline is just right. So, I just duplicated the layer and chose Mulitply in the blend mode until the image appeared darker without having to change the levels.
*I had to do this twice for a picture I was just working on.

Lisa

thanks for the tip Lisa! I wouldn't have thought of doing it that way, and by your results it looks like it works really well.

- David :)

VERY COOL Lisa!! Thanks for posting this. I have an aunt who prefers pencil and pen & ink over any other type of art, so this will definitely come in handy!! :)

Jeanie

Thanks ... I'm waiting to see a sketch from you now :)

Lisa

Here's another one that looks more like a pen and ink drawing. It's a picture I took of our inlet.

Lisa

thanks for the tip Lisa - that works wonderfully and is so simple to follow. I tried it on this photo and like the results without doing any more than follow your directions.

Margaret

forgot the attachment

Margaret

Nicely done, Fug... I greatly admire folks like you who have "actual" artistic talent from the "pick up a brush" (or graphics tablet) perspective to generate very realistic images. Even though you were tracing, that's a skill in and of itself.

Thanks.

A sketch like that is easy, what's difficult is a painting. I don't clone them. I have several unfinished that have been in the works for weeks, so it takes a certain commitment. Leonardo spent severl yrs on the Mona Lisa, no, not our Lisa, the other one, although their both beautiful.

greg

Who wants to see my first drawing with the Graphire, done Dec 26?

Lisa:

I, too, like what you've done. I remember discovering this technique myself on another site and how cool I thought was (and still think it is). What's up with an inverted layer set to Color Dodge and then apply Gaussian blur? Wonder who ran across that recipe and what they were drinking (smoking?) at the time?

Speaking of recipes, a book you'd probably find interesting is Photoshop X Cookbook, where X=5 or 6. Its got about 115 various combinations to illustrate the result of slicing, dicing and twisting the dials on various filter, layer and blend mode combinations. v5 is as good as v6 if you're interested. Anyway...

I took the liberty of taking your original and "messing with it a bit," in an attempt to retain the pencil-sketch flavor while making it look sufficiently different from one generated by the well publicized recipe.

Here's a before/after example to illustrate one possiblity. I took a screen shot of the Layers Palette, so hopefully you can follow the path I took if you're interested. I cheated and added some colorization to the eyes, "just because."

Hope this further stirs your creative braincells...

~DannyR~

Here's another...

Thanks for your great suggestions. I was just fooling around with adding color and angled strokes when I read your message. This has great potential! Sending your screen shot is a fabulous idea. Fugitive was frustrated about not being able to post a PSD file as it was too large. The purpose of him posting a PSD file was for us to see the steps he used. Great idea. I really like your second picture. I'll have to keep trying on different photos.

Thanks again!

Lisa

I worked on my daugthers picture a bit more. Added a little color and used brush strokes - accented edges. I think it looks a bit better.

Lisa

P.S. I like the second photo - looks great

Ah... I definitely like v2.0 even more than 1.0. Nicely done again, Lisa.

You obviously don't need my help in moving forward, but here's another .04 cents worth anyway just to keep the thread alive! :)

Try...
* Duplicating your working layer...
* Use your favorite blur tool, e.g., Dust & Scratches, Median, Gaussian, Smart Blur, etc., to blur the top layer a little.
* Create a layer mask for the blur layer and selectively apply the blur to the detail layer below via low pressure air brush. I've found this approach to be a subtle method of subduing the sometimes obvious and obnoxius uniformness of filter application.

Another method you're probably familiar with that comes in handy on occasion...
* Take a snapshot of the original color layer or a desaturated version of same
* Set new snapshot as the History source.
* Create a new top layer
* Use the History brush tool set at low opacity and choose a brush of your liking and lightly paint on "color" (or grays) where needed from the snapshot. This enables filling areas that need it with grayscale or color strokes.

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SOURCE OF INSPIRATION
Have you been to the action exchange site at adobe.com? There are dozens of freeware .atns devoted to creating "photo art" (as well as just about anything under the sun).

Some of the .atns are pretty lame; others are quite amazing in their creative use of filters, blends, etc. to achieve (more-or-less realistic) arty images. Dissecting some of these .atns (bad ones as well as good ones) opened a whole new dimension for me as far as filter / blend possiblities are concerned. It's been a real eye opener (in good sense).

----------------------

Anyway, this is great fun (for me) anyway. Thanks for sharing your successes, Lisa.

~DannyR~

Hey Margaret,

This is kind of neat huh! I'd love to see more. I think with Danny's suggestions, I've been able to get a more realistic sketch. I found I had areas in my daughters face that picked up too much of a shadow. I ended up erasing most of the shadow but I found another fun trick. I made a selection just around the outside edge - then inverted it and went to brushes and chose accented edge. It made the pictures edge look more like a sketch. Danny's suggestion about using smart blur or one of the filters on the top layer is also wonderful. Give it a try.

Lisa

Correction... I used angled strokes not accented edges. I also used cross hatch. Both worked nicely and made the picture look more like a sketch.

Lisa

Hi Lisa and Danny

Lisa
Do you remember your rusty truck from the watercolor thread? I thought that truck needed a old barn and I added one. However it didnt look real good as a water color..

I decided to try Dannys technique on it. After applying Danny's sandwich techinique I added the graphic pen filter set at diagonal.
Check out the old rusty truck.

Jerry :D

Jerry...

Boy... You really enhanced the image with the barn and other scenery! You slicer and dicer, you!

RE: Didn't look all that good as watercolor
That happens... sometimes "sketchy" looks good, sometimes "watercolor" looks good, sometimes they all look bad! My wife occasionally asks, "Why would you ever want to muck up a perfectly good photograph in the first place?" (I guess because I can.) ;)

Here's something else you can try...

Make a copy of the color layer (before you sketchy-ized it) and drag it to the top of the layer stack. Set the blend mode to "hard light" (or try other blend modes). Sometimes you get a pretty decent colored chalky/sketch effect. An example is attached...

Since I could get to Lisa's old truck pic, but not your extensions, the attachment only shows the effect on the truck.

~DannyR~

Very cool Jerry,

I have to ask, only the far right hand corner has color in it? Is it just me?

I have the same attitude as Danny - the reason I muck with a picture... is because I can. I take so many pictures and only a few do I feel worthy of blowing up and framing. The rest... well, I can play with. Like Jeanisa once mentions, some of the worst pictures end up the best of watercolor and sketching. I'm going to try Danny's method tonight on a few pictures I took today. I'll post the results. Let me know if there are any photos I can post full res if you want to keep playing.

Lisa

Back when I was working on your picture for the challange. I used that technique and added some color. I almost submitted it but thought it was outside of the rules for the challange.

Steve

Oh...I forgot.

Hi Lisa

You are looking at Danny's version of the rusty truck pic. He was showing me a new technique he is working on. My black and white version is right above his. Looking forward to seeing more of your pics.

Doug started a new challenge catagory in picture art..Very cool..

Steve I like your colorized Lisa. Looks like you fit right in to this thread.

Jerry:D