Quick PS photo to 'sketch'

Post by **morphim** » August 15th, 2007, 2:30 pm

This is from Scott Kelby's Down & Dirty Trick book.
I don't have the book but seem to remember this. Seems to work OK from what I do remember. Works better the higher the res.

1. Load a photo into photoshop.

2. Destaurate so it's B&W
Sort out any levels / curves so it looks OK.

3. Duplicate the layer.

4. Invert the top layer (so it's in negative < sorry. Just to make sure you know what i mean

)

5. Set the top layer's blend mode to 'color dodge'
This should make the screen go all white. I sometimes get odd artifacts of pixelated black in the darkest areas. I usually get over this by increasing the brightness of the darkest areas so they're not pure black.

6. Gaussian blur the top layer. Start at the lowest setting and slowly increase the slider value until you get the best result - not too much but just enough (usually around 1.5 to 2)

Done.

Give it a try. Only takes a few clicks and it's a good place to start with this kind of image. 'Poster Edges' (under 'artistic') is a good filter to run after this, just to give a bit of enhancment.

Here's one I did earlier >>

Caz · Post by **Caz** » August 15th, 2007, 2:39 pm

Nice effect! I might try that one.

Caz · Post by **Caz** » August 15th, 2007, 4:02 pm

Its not working for me, everytime i try to invert the top layer it says no pixels were selected. How did you invert just the top layer?

Caz · Post by **Caz** » August 15th, 2007, 5:08 pm

Right ive got the invert bit ok now. But i just end up with a bw image no colour?

Post by **morphim** » August 15th, 2007, 6:10 pm

Hello, Caz

Yes. That's right; you should have a B&W image (mostly white.)

I'm sorry. I should have been clearer. The example above of good ol' HP had more done to it.
I filtered the original, unaltered colour image to give it a painted look then overlayed the 'sketch' layers (not with 'overlay' but with whatever blend mode looked best)

I hope that helps and sorry for heightening your expectations.

Caz · Post by **Caz** » August 15th, 2007, 7:22 pm

ahhh ok, but you said just a few clicks so i guess i got impatient!

Anyway ive had a fun afternoon playing with photoshop (dont get to do that very often!) if i manage to do anything decent with it i will post it up!