Sketch

David Reed

Making images look like they’re sketches seems to be all the rage. This week. Next week it’ll probably be making your images look like crayon drawings or something.

The Basic

Anyway, here’s a way to take a photo and make it look like a sketch.

Starting with this photo. Sorry it’s me but I don’t have any pictures handy of attractive people.

Note: Pick something without a lot of background to it. I’ve got a shot of me outdoors in front of a whole bunch of plants and that didn’t work well.

This can also be done using the simpler, stripped-down Photoshop Elements.

First thing I’m going to do is make a couple of copies of this layer (Ctrl-J) so that I have a few layers to work with. I’m going to name them and turn off visibility of the Color layer on top.

Layers

Next I’m going to convert both the Inverted and the Background layers to Black-And-White. You can do this by selecting the layer and Shift-Alt-Ctrl-B or select Image -> Adjustments -> Black And White. (In Photoshop Elements it’s just Alt-Ctrl-B.) You can select the default or play with the different presets or even play with each color channel. For my complexion and the shirt and the background I liked Neutral Density. (In Photoshop Elements there’s a Portrait setting.) Do this for both the bottom two layers.

Convert Layer To Black-And-White

Select the middle layer, the one I called Inverted. And — this may not be a surprise — invert it by pressing Ctrl-I.

Inverted Layer

Next, change the blending mode of this layer to Color Dodge or Linear Dodge. I like Color Dodge, but you can change this later, too.

Layer Blending Mode

Next, apply a Gaussian Blur (Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur) to this layer. 40 pixels is a good place to start but go up or down from there to see how you like the effect. A lower radius will result in a more harsh look, a larger radius will give it a softer more air-brushed look.

Gaussian Blur

And…ta da!

Now…what about that unused layer? The one I called color.

Well, you can activate it, add a layer mask, and color in some bits of the sketch if you’d like. I did the below brushing in the eyes with about a 40% flow and 40% opacity until I liked it.

With color eyes. 12 pixel Gaussian blur, Color Dodge

Using Gimp

Update: 16 September 2021

Someone asked if this could be done with Gimp. I haven’t used Gimp in a long time so I had to download it and try.

  1. Open the image.
  2. Duplicate the layer by right-clicking on the layer and choose Duplicate Layer. Do this to the bottom-most layer twice.
  3. Rename the top layer Color and turn it off (click the eye)
  4. Rename the middle layer Inverted.
  5. Select the bottom most layer and from the Colors menu choose Desaturate -> Colors to Gray
  6. Select the middle layer (called Inverted in step 4) and do the same: Colors -> Desaturate -> Colors to Gray
  7. With the middle Inverted layer still selected, open the Colors menu and choose Invert
  8. Double click the Invert Layer and from the Mode drop-down choose Dodge. (You can play with this later.)
  9. With the Inverted layer still selected, open the Filters menu and choose Blur -> Gaussian Blur. Scroll the Size X slider up to 40 or higher.
  10. Play with the blend mode for some interesting looks.

Using Gimp 2

Another way using Gimp.

  1. Open the image.
  2. Convert the layer to grayscale (Colors -> Desaturate -> Color to Gray)
  3. Filters -> Edge Detect -> Difference Of Gaussians (Legacy)
  4. Play with Radius 1. 70 is what I use.