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How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing Photoshop


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Posted By hannah on Nov 10, 2010 | 56 comments


It is a relatively easy process to turn a photo into a line drawing with photoshop. Follow the steps below which uses layers, image desauration, layer modes and a guassian blur to change a photo into a pencil sketch. This effect will work on almost any image. The final quality will depend on how sharp your original image is. If there are lots of strong lines in the original image, then this process is the one for you. Use the quick key commands at the bottom of the post to change any image into a line drawing in under a minute! Step 1. Open up the photo that you wish to change into a drawing.

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I have used this Coke can photograph by Cyclonebill. It can be found on WikiMedia Commons if you wish to use the same image to follow this tutorial.
www.photoshopbuzz.com/change-photo-to-line-drawing/

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How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing in Photoshop | photoshopbuzz.com

Step 2. Duplicate the image in the layers pallette.

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duplicate layer

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Step 3. With the new layer selected you need to desaturate the image. To do this go to Image > adjustments > desaturate. Or choose Shift Apple U / Shift Ctrl U.

desaturate the image

Step 4. Duplicate this modified layer. You should now have a colour background layer and 2 desaturated layers above.

layer palette

Step 5. Select the top layer and invert the image. To do this go to Image > Adjustments and choose Invert or press Ctrl I / Apple I.

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Invert Image

Step 6. With the top layer still selected (the inverted layer) choose Colour Dodge from the layers pallete drop down menu. (This will make most of the image turn white)

change the layer mode to colour dodge

the canvas will turn white at this satge

Step 7. We now need to apply a guassian blur to the newly white layer to allow parts of the layer underneath to show through. Select the top layer and choose Filter > Blur > Guassian Blur.

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How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing in Photoshop | photoshopbuzz.com

Choose Filter > Blur > Guassian Blur

Step 8. Move the slider up and down to find what level suits your picture. The setting for this is often somewhere between 1 and 3 but will depend on how complex your original image is.

Guassian blur settings to create a line drawing

Step 9. To tidy up the image use the Dodge and Burn tools to clean up the image. The Dodge tool will lighten the pencil marks, the burn tool darken them.

Dodge and burn tools

I am going to use the dodge tool on the Coke can image to tidy up the background around the can.
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How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing in Photoshop | photoshopbuzz.com

Neaten up the image using the dodge and burn tools

Original photo

original photo

Pencil line drawing made from the above photo

Line drawing made from a photo using Photoshop

Quick Key commands to change a photo into a line drawing:


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How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing in Photoshop | photoshopbuzz.com

Mac: With the original picture selected in the layers palette; Apple J, Apple Shift U, Apple J, Apple I, with the top layer selcted choose colour dodge, Guassian Blur setting between 1 & 3. PC: With the original picture selected in the layers palette; Ctrl J, Ctrl Shift U, Ctrl J, Ctrl I, with the top layer selcted choose colour dodge, Guassian Blur setting between 1 & 3. Update: I have just created a new tutorial which follows on from this one and shows how to add colour to the finished line drawing to create a coloured pencil effect: http://www.photoshopbuzz.com/coloured-pencil-effect/

Author: hannah Hannah works as a website designer for a digital agency based in the UK. She has over 15 years experience using Photoshop and has been using it daily since 2005.

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56 Comments
Miles
JUNE 27, 2011

Thank you so much. I am trying to laser etch an image into stainless steel and it must be an outline. You just saved me so much time.

Sarah
DECEMBER 11, 2011

Your a life saver!! Is this adobe ps?

hannah
DECEMBER 15, 2011

Yes adobe photoshop. I have created a downloadable action for Photoshop to create this effect if you are interested: http://www.photoshopbuzz.com/1087/free-photoshop-action/

Jill
JANUARY 1, 2012

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How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing in Photoshop | photoshopbuzz.com

This was working brilliantly until the end when I got to the part Filter> Blur> Guassian Blur. I was able to do all that but the picture remained white. I set it to 1.5 but nothing seemed to happen. Am I missing a step? Would love to be able to do this. Thanks

hannah
JANUARY 2, 2012

Hi Jill, if there isnt a lot of contrast in your original picture, it may be that you need to set the Guassian Blur to a higher setting than 1.5, so you could try that. It is also important that you duplicate the layers in the early stages and have the different layers underneath as the top layer actually masks the layer behind it to create the picture, so also check that you have the correct sequence of layers in the layers palette before adding the guassian blur on the top layer. I hope that that helps.

deborah
MARCH 19, 2012

oh wow this was so easy to do following your quick key command steps. Thanks so much!

hannah
MARCH 25, 2012

thanks for your comment

helen
APRIL 23, 2012

Brilliant! Is there any way to change to colour of the drawing, to say for example, give the effect of using a coloured pencil? thank u

Lauren Cioffi
JUNE 7, 2012

Hi there! I love this post!! I cant wait to give this a try!!! I hope you dont mind, but I have included this tutorial in a blog post: Top 10 photoshop tutorials, on my blog, Cookies with Cronkite. I have included a link to this post, a picture and a link to your blog homepage. Check it out.. please leave comments, I would LOVE your feed back!!

hannah
JUNE 8, 2012

Hi Lauren, You are welcome to share the tutorial so long as you provide a link back to my post. Thanks for letting me know

Liz Czerewaty
JULY 24, 2012

Can i do this with Photoshop Elements? Thanks

hannah
JULY 24, 2012

www.photoshopbuzz.com/change-photo-to-line-drawing/

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How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing in Photoshop | photoshopbuzz.com

Hi Liz, the tutorial was written for regular Photoshop, but please try the steps in Elements and let us know how you get on. If anyone else has tried this in elements please let us know.

Uttam Manna
JULY 30, 2012

It was very easy, thank you very much.

hannah
JULY 30, 2012

Thanks for your comment, glad you found it useful

Beth
AUGUST 7, 2012

This is fabulous! Now if I want to copy a portion of the original photo, do I need to flatten the layers?

hannah
AUGUST 7, 2012

Hi Beth, thanks for comment. The original photo will still be in place at the bottom of the layers so you can select that layer and copy and paste from it, or just duplicate that layer and bring it to the top and erase a section to reveal the line drawing.. hope that helps. Thanks Hannah

Jacki
AUGUST 11, 2012

Im using Photoshop Elements 8 and Step 6, color dodge doesnt make my image mostly white, it does, however, invert the tones so what was once dark is now light and vice versa. The gaussian blur also does nothing but blur the color-dodged image. Any help for Elements 8 here?

Asad
SEPTEMBER 1, 2012

great tutorial, i like it

hannah
SEPTEMBER 3, 2012

If anyone uses Photoshop Elements and can help with the questions please use the comments below.

viomjeet
SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

Thanksfor great tutorial..

malcolm
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SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing in Photoshop | photoshopbuzz.com

Just tried this in Elements 9 and it worked perfectly. Not sure why PE8 doesnt work.

hannah
SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Thanks for the feedback Malcolm

arome
OCTOBER 8, 2012

hanna n co thanks for the tutorials especially for us beginner. and if there are more tips please help us

hannah
OCTOBER 8, 2012

Hi Arome, Thanks for your comment. Let me know in the comments if there is anything in particular you would like a tutorial about. Thanks.

Michell
OCTOBER 15, 2012

Brilliant! Thanks for helping, I am a beginner too, used this on a pretty complex photo, had to ramp up the blur but I love it! Thanks again!

hannah
OCTOBER 15, 2012

Thanks for your comments Michell

Shalu
OCTOBER 17, 2012

Thanks a ton

Alfie
NOVEMBER 7, 2012

Thanks so much. Made my life easier.

Joe
NOVEMBER 10, 2012

thanks so much, greetings from Spain

kanagu
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NOVEMBER 17, 2012

How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing in Photoshop | photoshopbuzz.com

Thanks bro

It worked really well

Snap
NOVEMBER 21, 2012

Very simple and helpful. Thank you very much ^.^

Louise
NOVEMBER 23, 2012

The best step-by-step Photoshop instruction I have ever used thank you so much.

Raphael Mensah
NOVEMBER 24, 2012

Thank you so much. it is so easy to follow. i ended making a huge poster for my wife.Please as helen asked above, Is there any way to change to colour of the drawing, to say for example, give the effect of using a coloured pencil? thank u

Chris
DECEMBER 6, 2012

Thanks a lot. This was great

Noelle
DECEMBER 9, 2012

Im using PS Elements 8. Im trying to make a photo of a building look like a drawing. The result I have does not look like a pencil drawing at all. Rather it looks like a photo with color and some shadows removed. Increasing the Blur makes it look like a more grayscale picture. Is it me or the software?

Name *Shoaib
DECEMBER 26, 2012

Can you tell us how to convert JPEG into watercolor painting

Alex
JANUARY 6, 2013

Never used photoshop before and I managed it. All apart from the dodge and burn tools as Im using laptop with limited mouse manoeuvrability. Thanks!

hannah
JANUARY 7, 2013

Thanks for the feedback Alex, Im glad you found it easy to follow since youve not used Photoshop before. Welcome to Photoshop
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How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing in Photoshop | photoshopbuzz.com

aat
JANUARY 22, 2013

many thanks!!! you help me a lot, from spain

hannah
JANUARY 22, 2013

Thanks for your comment aat

praveen
FEBRUARY 2, 2013

awesome

kileytoo
FEBRUARY 3, 2013

Hi there, thanks for this great tutorial and the follow-up to add colors. You can also colorize the image with a hue/saturation layer, anyway I think that a great thing to do before to add colors would be to modify the line drawing so that it shows the typical hatching of pencil and inks, you know those fine lines you use to fill-in dark areas or add shading Im gonna see if I can find out how to do that

Lalith
FEBRUARY 15, 2013

Great hannah, though there are a few online photo conversions to sketch available, they never have the full image conversion, meaning the image result that they give is of either much less image size or does not give the required effect. Any body seeking to do the pencil work manually, just follow hannahs guidance. Thanks again, dear hannah.

Annette Payne
FEBRUARY 19, 2013

Thanks so much for making this so simple!!! Any other fun tips you want to share?

hannah
FEBRUARY 20, 2013

Hi Lalith, thanks for your lovely comments, much appreciated

Majeur
FEBRUARY 21, 2013

Hannah, what an amazing job. Youve put this challenging task into simple steps that defines user friendly to a different level. Your awesome for your techniques youve created in teaching the rest of us. You are the instructor in this categor.

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How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing in Photoshop | photoshopbuzz.com

Merci a vous! Majeur

hannah
FEBRUARY 27, 2013

Thank you Majeur

Jefff
MARCH 18, 2013

Which of the several versions of Photoshop has this feature? I do not want to buy a program, install it, and find I need something else. Thank You, Jeff

hannah
MARCH 18, 2013

Hi Jeff, I cant see any reason why this wouldnt work in all main CS versions of Photoshop as all have layers, filters and layer properties used in the tutorial. You can always download a free Photoshop trial to test it in the version you are thinking of buying. (It wont work in Photoshop lightroom).

hadeer
MAY 19, 2013

woooooow,,thank u

Anuraag
MAY 21, 2013

Tutorial is good. But the image doesnt looks like pencil sketch effect. Hope to see such more wonderful tutorials.

Terror07death
JUNE 5, 2013

really helpfull

Bijay Ranjan Pati


JULY 15, 2013

How amazing thanks.

akhil
JULY 29, 2013

awesome bro thanq. (y)

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How to change a photo into a pencil line drawing in Photoshop | photoshopbuzz.com

jackzon
AUGUST 27, 2013

awesome tutorial.. thanks a lot

Sinha
AUGUST 27, 2013

It was a great experience! Loved doing it. Will appreciate such more tutorials. Pl provide links. It will certainly help me add value to our mag.

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