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 using GIMP 2.4.
It's divided into 7 steps and takes about
20 min to complete for an average user. 51055 times read so far.
Category: Photos / wallpapers, required skill:
30 comments have been posted so far.
Available in other languages:
Files you need if you try this tutorial:
- Angelina Jolie (AngelinaJolie.jpg)
Relevant links:
-
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).
Click to enlarge -
2
Duplicate the background layer. Then remove the colors by using Colors / Colorize / Saturation. Set the saturation to -100:
Click to enlarge -
3
Duplicate this color-less layer again. Now you have 3 layers.
Click to enlarge -
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.
Click to enlarge -
5
Merge the layer with the layer down: right-click the layer in the Layers window and choose "Merge down".
Click to enlarge -
6
Duplicate the now merged layer and change the new layer's mode to "Dodge".
Now the pencil drawing is finished!
Click to enlarge -
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: Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Austria
Links (pingbacks)
Comments
Post your own comments, questions or hints here. The author and other users will see your posting and can reply to it. Of course, you can also ask in the chat.
Comments are chronologically arranged.