Tutorial: Sketch, OhThatGirl2001 method

[OhThatGirl2001]

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

[OhThatGirl2001]

I forgot to add the link

http://forums.about.com/ab-graphicssoft/messages?lgnF=y&tid=2662

Lisa

[DJ Dubovsky]

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

[OhThatGirl2001]

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

[d_kendal]

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

[jeaniesa]

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

[OhThatGirl2001]

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

Lisa

[OhThatGirl2001]

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

Lisa

[winwintoo]

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

[winwintoo]

forgot the attachment

Margaret

[DannyRaphael]

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.

[Guest]

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?

[DannyRaphael]

I can't leave well enough alone...

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~

[DannyRaphael]

Here's another...

[OhThatGirl2001]

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