[Cheryl H]

Color Cross Sketch

1. Make 2 duplicates of the background. Turn the top one off (you don’t use it until the end)
2. On the lower copy, Image—Adjust—Desaturate
3. Duplicate desaturated image.
4. On duplicate desaturated copy, Image—Adjust—Invert.
5. Set blending mode to Color Dodge. Run Gaussian Blur with a fairly high amount (4-9).
6. Layer—Merge Down
7. Duplicate merged black and white layer.
8. Multiply and Gaussian blur again—same settings.
9. Layer—Merge Down
10. On black and white layer—Filter—Brush Strokes—Crosshatch roughly (10-4-2).
11. Make sure you have a black foreground and white background. On black and white layer, Filter—Artistic—Colored Pencil (4-14-43 roughly).
12. Fade colored pencil 50-80% in multiply mode.
13. Duplicate the black and white image. Turn the top one off, work on the lower one. Your layer palette from top to bottom has the top 2 off and the bottom 2 on. It goes color, bw, bw, color.
14. Working on the lower black and white layer. Filter—Gaussian Blur 1%
15. Filter Stylize—Diffuse—Ansiotropic.
16. Turn on upper black and white layer. Set to luminosity and opacity 50-80%
17. Turn on upper layer. Set blending mode to color burn.
18. If more intensity is desired, duplicate top layer and adjust opacity. Usually 25% on the dup layer.

Here's the before.

[Cheryl H]

Here's the after.

Now you try it on one of yours.

[Cheryl H]

My first attempt at recording an action.

[DannyRaphael]

Nice writeup, Cheryl. I used the steps, not the action which I'll scope out later. (congrats to you, too, for taking the leap! you catch on quickly)

An FYI on step 16...

Since the layer is already BW, you could use either Luminosity or Normal and get the same results. Had that layer been a color layer, then Luminosity would be a factor. No biggie.

Anyway, here's a stab at mini-challenge 142 using this method.

BTW: Something I picked up a while back when using the Colored Pencil filter: If you precede CP with a light application of Noise > Add Noise (a setting of 2-3 is all you need), it seems to give CP "something to grab onto" in areas where there's no contrast, e.g. shadows or white areas. Doing so helps avoid the areas of splotchiness sometimes rendered by CP.

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Your flower turned out very nice, Don.

Now that you're starting to get the hang of actions, don't you like the ability to play one again to get different results -- and not have to ?