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Turning a Photo into an Ink Drawing or a Pencil Sketch (in Photoshop)

Submitted by LouBrz on 29 November 2011 - 12:15am.

In this article, we'll take a portrait photo and give it a hand-drawn touch by turning it into first an ink drawing (below left) and then a pencil sketch (right). As you can see, this guy is quite surprised at how well the technique works.

We'll start by making the ink effect using a Smart Object, Gaussian Blur, High Pass, the seldom-used Note Paper filter, another round of Gaussian Blur, a Levels adjustment layer, the Multiply blend mode, and a little bit of luminance blending. It's hardly a one-click solution, but the results are amazing. Plus, this flexible approach can produce several interesting alternative looks, including a credible pencil effect, also documented here.

Today's article is based on Deke's Techniques 026 and 027, presented by lynda.com. (The ink effect is also documented in video form on this site.)

Inking a Photograph

For this example, we started by combining the notebook paper background and a portrait by Warren Goldswain, both from the Fotolia Image Library.

|| In this project, we'll be duplicating layers several times. If you're following along, rather than have the word "copy" appear in the layer names, you can turn the feature off by clicking on the icon at the upper right corner of the Layers panel and selecting Panel Options from the menu. Un-check the option that says Add "copy" to Copied Layers and Groups at the bottom of the dialog. Also, be sure to work in 8-bit mode, since most of the filters only work in 8-bit. ||

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First, we'll convert the portrait layer to a smart object. This will allow us to apply smart filters to the image: Right-click/Control-click on the layer (not the thumbnail) and choose Convert to Smart Object from the menu.

Use Ctrl/Command + J to duplicate the layer and turn off the visibility of the bottom layer.

This produces a copy of the Smart Object that shares the same source as the original. Double-clicking on the Smart Object and editing the source will update both copies.

Next, we'll add several Smart Filters to the top portrait layer.

We'll blur the image slightly to reduce the details in the image before we tell Photoshop to trace them.

1. Select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur from the menu bar.2. Set radius to 1px.3. Click OK.

Next, we'll use command that Deke almost never uses.

1. Select Filter > Blur > Smart Blur from the menu bar.

2. Use the settings shown:

Radius: 3.0 Threshold: 10 Quality: High

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Mode: Normal

3. Click OK

Next is one of the key filters for this effect. What it essentially does is gray out the non-details in the image, but keeps the rest in pretty good shape. We'll use a radius of 2.0, but your radius may vary, depending on the image you use.

Select Filter > Other > High Pass from the menu bar, set the radius, and then click OK.

Before you apply the next filter, tap the D (as in "default colors") key to establish black and white as the resspective foreground and background colors. The next filter relies on those colors.

Now, select Filter > Sketch > Note Paper from the menu bar.

Use the settings shown and then click OK:

Image Balance: 25 (almost any other setting will completely mess your image up, though you can try other settings if you like)

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Graininess: 0 Relief: 0

If you zoom in at this point, you'll see that the lines have jagged edges, which are the result of the threshold effect of the Note Paper filter. We'll blur to soften and modify the blending options of the blur.

1. Select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur from the menu bar, set the Radius to 1px, and then click OK.2. Double-click the slider icon on the top gaussian blur effect.

3. Change the blending mode to Multiply and then click OK.

This intensifies the effect. You'll still see some jaggies, but it's an improvement.

We won't need the filter mask, so we'll get rid of it to reduce clutter:

Right-click/Control-click on the filter mask thumbnail and choose Delete Filter mask from the menu.

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Now, we'll create a Levels adjustment layer that only applies to the current portrait layer. You do that by creating a Clipping Mask.

1. Hold the Alt/Option key down and select Levels from the menu inside the half-black circle icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. (Holding the Alt/Option key down tells the menu to open the New Layer dialog before it creates the new adjustment layer.)

2. Name your layer contrast and make sure the "Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask" option is turned on. Click OK.

The Adjustments panel will activate.

3. Move the black point slider to the right until it touches the left edge of the data points in the Histogram profile.4. Click in the Gamma box (the one in the middle, hold the Shift key and tap the down arrow key three times to bump the value to reuse the value to

0.7.

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To make the white portions of this image disappear, we'll change the blending mode of the layer:

Click in the Layers panel to activate the portrait layer and Change its blending mode to Multiply.

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At this point, the image approximates an ink drawing, except that no one would trace around features with a pen and not fill them in. We'll use the original Portrait layer to do that.

1. Click the eyeball icon to turn on the first portrait layer.2. Click on the layer to make it active.3. Change its blend mode to multiply.

Finally, we only want to keep the dark details and eliminate the light details in the layer, so we'll use Blend If to control that.

1. Double-click in the neutral area of the layer to open the Layer Styles dialog.

2. In the Blend if section of the dialog, move the right-hand control on the This Layer slider bar to the left to make the highlights vanish. In this example, Deke selected a value of 95.

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This produces very harsh transitions, so we'll smooth the effect by splitting the slider:

3. Hold down the Alt/Option key, then press the mouse button down on the right edge of the slider and drag it to the right. The slider will split apart.4. Once the slider is separated into two parts, you can release the Alt/Option key and drag the two parts independently. For this image, Deke dragged

the right half of the slider to 180.

5. Click OK to accept the change and complete the image:

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Bonus Versions

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You can toggle the visibility of various Smart Filters to see their contributions and create alternate versions of the composition.

Press the mouse button down on the eyeball for the High Pass Smart filter and drag down across Smart Blur and the first Gaussian blur to produce a nice variation.

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Toggle the High Pass filter back on to see its contribution. Combining either Smart Blur or Gaussian Blur with High Pass will produce versions that show how these two filters work differently to eliminate detail.

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Getting out the Pencil

Now, to turn the ink drawing into a penciled effect. For this example, we made two change to the ink drawing file:

A parchment paper texture was used for the background instead of the note paper you saw before. Deke brought out the eyes and teeth by adding a layer as follows:

1. Click on the plain portrait layer and use Ctrl/Command + J to duplicate it.2. Click the bottom-most portrait layer to activate it.3. Select the eyes and the teeth (e.g. with the quick Selection tool).4. Click the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.

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5. Change the Blend Mode to Screen.6. Reduce the opacity of the layer to 50%.

Now, we're ready to move forward with the effect. Click the top portrait layer to select it, and click the eyeball icon to turn off its Smart Blur filter.

We need to create a copy of the background layer to use as a displacement map.

1. Hold down the Alt/Option key and drag the background layer to the icon to Create a New Layer. The Duplicate Layer dialog will appear.2. Select New from the Document menu.

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3. Click OK. You'll be looking at the new document.4. Select Image > Mode > Grayscale from the menu bar. If you see the Discard color information warning, go ahead and click Discard.

|| Note: If you're working with your own files, the files used for textures need to be flat. If your document has layers, choose Layer > Flatten Image from the menu bar. ||

5. Use File > Save As to save the grayscale file in Photoshop (PSD) format.

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Now, we'll use that file as a texture for the next effect.

1. Return to the main drawing file.2. Click on the filtered portrait layer.

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3. Select Filter > Artistic > Underpainting. (The filter will add some darkness and a bit of a wash effect to the image.)

4. Confirm the following settings:

Brush size:2 Texture Coverage: 10 Scaling 100% Relief: 5 Light: Top

The texture is not correct. We'll load the grayscale file we just created and use that as our texture:

1. Click the icon to the right of the Texture menu and select Load Texture from the menu that appears.2. Use the file dialog to locate the file and click Open (Load on Mac). The texture effect now matches the background.

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3. Click OK to apply the new Smart Filter.4. Don't worry that applying the filter just messed some things up.5. Drag the Underpainting filter below Gaussian Blur to reorder the filters.

To intensify the effect, we'll change the blending mode:

1. Double-click the slider icon on the right edge of the Underpainting Smart filter.2. When the Blending Options dialog appears, change the Mode to Multiply and then click OK.

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Next we'll apply the Crosshatch filter, one of the few old gallery effects that Deke actually likes, and intensify its effect with a blending mode.

1. Select Filter > Brush Strokes > Crosshatch from the menu bar

1. Apply the settings shown and click OK.2. Double-click the slider icon for the Crosshatch Smart Filter.3. Change the Mode setting to Multiply and then click OK.

At this point, the Levels adjustment we created earlier to add contrast to the ink drawing is making things too dark.

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1. Double-click the Contrast layer to activate the Adjustments panel.2. Drag the Black point slider to the left, to around 20. (This is where the values begin in the Histogram for this particular image. The settings for your

image may be different.)

To make the pencil marks conform more to the texture of the paper, we'll use that gray paper file a second time as a displacement map.

1. Click the filtered portrait layer to select it.2. Select Filter > Distort > Displace from the menu bar3. Set both the Horizontal and Vertical Scale values to 3 and then Click OK.4. When the Open dialog appears, locate the the gray paper file and click Open.

The resulting effect is subtle, but it does a better job of integrating the pencil marks with the paper. To see the difference, you can Zoom in on the image and toggle the eyeball for the Displace Smart Filter off and back on.

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Our image is coming along well. We can improve it a bit more by copying some of the smart filters onto the second portrait layer. To do that, hold down the Alt/Option key and drag the filter onto the target layer.

1. Alt/Option drag the Crosshatch Smart Filter onto the second portrait layer. Release the mouse button when an outline appears around the target layer.

2. Notice that the effect will appears dark. That's because the filter we just copied is set to the Multiply blending mode. To fix that, we'll change the blending mode.

3. Double-click the slider icon on the new Crosshatch copy to open the Blending Options dialog

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4. Change the Mode to Normal5. Click OK6. Alt/Option-drag the Displace filter onto the second portrait layer.

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|| There is a slight chance that Photoshop may track of the displacement map when you copy the Smart Filter. If that happens, you'll see a dialog asking you to select and open it the same way you did earlier. ||

Once your displace filter is copied, you can get rid of the filter mask that's cluttering up the Layers panel: Right-click/Control-click on the filter mask and then choose Delete Filter Mask from the menu.

Finally, the color in the second portrait layer is taking away from the pencil sketch effect, so we'll convert the layer to grayscale.

1. Click on the layer to select it.2. Hold down the Alt/Option key and select Hue/Saturation from the menu inside the New Adjustment Layer icon (the black and white circle) at the

bottom of the Layers panel.3. When the new layer dialog appears, name it "nosat" and check the box that says Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask.

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4. Click the OK button to create the adjustment layer.5. In the Adjustments panel, drag the Saturation value to -100.

And with that, we have our final version of the pencil drawing:

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The combination of techniques and filters create an image that has depth and integrity. You can zoom in close to get a greater appreciation of how the elements meld.