If you turn your photos into sketches, they will look great on your website and social media. It can also increase the attractiveness of your e-commerce site. While it is time-consuming and costly to get illustrations made, you can achieve the same using photoshop. The process involved in making a picture look like an illustration is simpler than you can imagine.
Achieving the line effect will require certain tools and filters. You will have to prepare the image properly before applying the filters to make it look natural. There are multiple methods to get that outlining effect. First of all, we will go ahead with the methods that are used to make a photo look like a pencil sketch. Then, we will tell you how to add effects that will make the image more presentable.
- The method involved in converting a photo into a sketch
Step 1
To make the products in the photo stand out, you will have to adjust the contrast. Prepare duplicate layers of the image and then turn the image into grayscale. Turning the image into grayscale will require you to increase the saturation level of the picture. The properties panel will provide you with the option of increasing the saturation level of the image.
Step 2
The next step involved is converting the photo into a line drawing. This requires you to invert the image using the invert option in the adjustments. You can also use the command CTRL+I to invert the image.
Step 3
Next comes turning the image into a line drawing. For this, choose Gaussian Blur in the Blur menu of the Filter panel. You can adjust the slider to achieve the effect that you want for the image. Keep looking at how the image changes in the dialog box to get the effect right.
Step 4
Next comes adding shade effect to the image. For this, you need to choose the filter gallery option from the filter menu. In the Sketch folder of the filter gallery, you need to choose the Charcoal option. You can adjust the charcoal thickness, detail, and light/dark balance according to your requirements.
- Add more effects to the illustration
You can add more effects using Photoshop for the illustration you have just created. These include created cross-hatching effect. A few filters like Graphic Pen Filter and Motion Blur are used to create the cross-hatching effect. The Graphic Pen filter is a way to add shading to a layer. And, it is crisper than the Charcoal Filter. To reduce the crispness, a Motion Blur filter is used.
To use the Motion Blur filter, you must set the angle at 45 degrees and move the slider to the left to create a very slight blur. Don’t forget to keep looking at the preview so that you know that you are getting what you want. Final touches should be added to create the perfect illustration. The layers’ opacity can be tweaked to reduce the intensity of the pencil sketching. You can also clean up any dark smudges to get a spotless image.