Making a pencil drawing from a photo
Comic artists have it easy - they can scan their pencil drawings and then edit them. But how to make a realistically looking pencil drawing from a photo? In this tutorial you will learn how to convert almost any image into a good-looking pencil drawing, and yon even won't need edge detection filters. All you need are a few different layer modes.
This article has been written by devvv
(Bernhard Stockmann) using GIMP 2.4
and translated to English by redforce
(Richard H.).
It's divided into 7 steps and takes about
20 min to complete for an average user. 13549 times read so far.
Category: Photos / wallpapers, required skill:
12 comments have been posted so far.
Available in other languages:
Files you need if you try this tutorial:
- Angelina Jolie (AngelinaJolie.jpg)
-
1
Open any photo you like. If you want to do the tutorial exactly as shown here, feel free to use the photo of Angelina Jolie (download link on the right side below the tutorial details).
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2
Duplicate the background layer. Then remove the colors by using Colors / Colorize / Saturation. Set the saturation to -100:
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3
Duplicate this color-less layer again. Now you have 3 layers.
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4
Now choose Filters / Blur / Selective Gaussian Blur, value: 4. Then use Colors / Invert. Then change the opacity of the layer to 50% to get a grey layer that shows the photo's edges very weak.
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5
Merge the layer with the layer down: right-click the layer in the Layers window and choose "Merge down".
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6
Duplicate the now merged layer and change the new layer's mode to "Dodge".
Now the pencil drawing is finished!
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7
If you want to point out the grey lines some more, you can do so as follows:
Merge the two grey layers so that you can find the line drawing on a single layer. Duplicate the layer again and change its mode to "Multiply".
Repeat this step as often as you like (until the width of the lines is OK).
On my image I have applied a layer mask over the line drawing so there is a transition between photo and line drawing.
Have fun!
Click to enlarge
This article is licensed under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Austria
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