Creating the Sketch Effect in Photoshop
In this photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to manipulate an ordinary photograph and make it look like a Black & White Sketch.
Source Photo: Danny North on Flickr
The Photoshop Sketch Effect:
Step 1:
The most important part of this photoshop tutorial is choosing the right photo. In my opinion, I found the photoshop sketch effect looked best on a high-contrast image with a simple background.
I decided on this image of Dave Grohl, because I just went to the Foo Fighters Houston Concert a few days ago. Anyways, once you decide what image you want to use, Duplicate the layer.
You now want to Desaturate the newly created layer.
Image » Adjustments » Desaturate
Step 2:
Once your image has been Desaturated, duplicate the layer.
You should now have three layers -
(1) Color & (2) Desaturated Layers
This new duplicated layer should now be located above your Desaturated layer on the layer palette. We will now Invert this layer.
To do this you must have the new layer selected, and then go:
Image » Adjustments » Invert
Your result should be similar to the image on the right.
Step 3:
Now, with the Inverted Layer selected, you must change the Blending Mode to “Color Dodge.” If your image just turned all white with a few black specks or lines, don’t worry. Thats what you want it to do.
Now, you will go add a Gaussian Blur to the inverted layer.
Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur
Now, you must choose what size pixels to set your Radius Blur to. This all depends on your image, but for this particular image, I choose 6px.
That’s it! You should now have an image similar to the one on the right.
Step 4: Sketch Effect in Color
This is a *bonus* step for the Sketch Effect.
If you would like to turn your new Image/Sketch into a Color Sketch, then simply turn off the desaturated layer.
You should have 3 layers on the layer palette. One Color layer, one Desaturated layer, and one Inverted layer. They should be in this order, from bottom to top.
As you can see, this has been a fairly easy photoshop tutorial. You have learned how to create a Black & White Sketch effect. As you can see, it’s a fairly easy tutorial. This works with various kinds of photographs, as well as colors.
39 Comments Received
Great tut man, very simple yet it creates a nice sketch effect. Keep it up!
I just tried making my photo a sketch. Looks good! Very useful tutorial. Thanks!
Great sketch tutorial! Worked perfectly. Thanks!!
Pretty cool, unique tutorial! I like it
So.. I have seriously seen a bunch of Sketch Effect tutorials, but this one is by-far, one of the best I’ve read… Great Post!
Very nice tutorial and well explained! I will give it a try at home.
Cheers,
Nick
P.S. You are now listed on my Do Follow List!
You make a good point about high contrast, make sure the colors in the original are vivid and not too saturated or else the end result will come out looking like you did a Filter -> Find Edges look.
Great tutorial though!
Great effect…
i will certantly add it to some of my works
thanks for the idea
Nice tip, thanks for sharing.
very cool. i wanna try this with an image i have in my disk stick.
ah this is awesome! I’ve always wondered how to do this–thanks for the directions!
awesome tricks. I wish I had known that when I was in college. Lol..
Great tutorial! Thanks
There is probably only one thing which you didn’t explain how to do. And trust me to get stuck right there.
When you say change the Blending Mode to “Color Dodge”, how does one do that?
Great Tutorial.. i shall try it our on one of my many images/photos…
Thank you for this nice tutorial.
Damn - you don’t know how helpful this torturial have been
Thanks for photoshop material. You really know what you’re doing! Good work.
Thanks for great sketch tutorial… I tried it on my project and it worked well. cheers.
Thanks for this nice tutorial. It was really helpful on one of my graphic design projects.
Thanks for the tutorial. I’ve been making a lot of music gig posters lately and will definitely add this touch to one of them. Make sure the edges of the subject have a high contrast against the background or else the subject will disappear! Thanks so much!
hi. very cool tutorial… I’ve never seen a color sketch effect tutorial before. thank you!
Great simple tutorial, 3 - 4 steps, couldn’t be easier.
Why is the bottom of his left jean leg not as washed out as the rest?
I think I could use that for one of my sites. Thanks for the sketch effect tutorial.
thanks for the sketch effect tutorial.. It worked well. I’m going to save your RSS feed and follow your blog and your photoshop tutorials.
That’s a sweet photoshop effect, doesn’t always work out perfectly, but pretty good most times.
Well I knew how to do the black & white sketch, but I didn’t ever think of a colored version of the sketch effect. I like it alot.. Cheers!
I did heard about photoshop earlier, it’s widely used in web designing and for graphic design. I’ve never really used it though, other than to crop images. Is there any option in photoshop where we can convert black and white pictures into color.
Nice tut, thanks!
Thanks for this. I tried this and it works beautifully
I love the fact that it’s quick and simple and also the fact that we can colour the sketch
Great tut, very simple but nice result!
Thanks for the tutorial. I discovered a site named befunky.com. There are similar effects that you can turn your photo instantly.
this is cool. i did it in face book and now a days i started doing all my pictures sketched. but never did it using photoshop.
how do you do the blending mode to color dodge
cant find any where that says blending mode
Thanks for the tutorial - it’s easy and works great.
Sir, good eve..,
you have shared a great & amazing tutorial about this topic, I am currently doing a sketch of my client right now (I mean real pencil sketching)& i just thought of typing in the net on how to do a “sketch effect in photoshop” and just a click away I saw this and I was just thinking of an easy way to work it in photo shop or do try hard way….do you think that’s FAIR sir…
I’m really confuse right now…hope you read this sir and I would appreciate your warm reply….many tnx -RUSSEL
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