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.