Turn Photographs into Drawings

Here's an easy way of getting more out of your photographs by turning them into cartoonish drawings.

1: The first thing we need to do is pick our subject.

2: Now we have to get rid of the color. We can easily do this by clicking Image->Adjustments->Desaturate, or by pressing SHIFT+CRTL+U on the keyboard.

3: Press CRTL+L to bring up the Levels dialogue. This helps us to improve the contrast in the image. You will see 3 triangles; black, grey and white. These are the shadows, midtones and highlights respectively. Adjust them to the positions indicated.

4: Now for a bit of photoshop magic. Go Filter->Sketch->photocopy. Play around with the values until you see something you like. You can always press CRTL+Z to undo it.

5: This is the result I got. All ready for painting.

6: We are going to create a new layer for each color. This keeps things organized and is easier to modify later on. Click the 'create new layer' icon on the layers panel.

7: Ah, problem. We need the new layer under the background layer, otherwise when we paint we'll go over the black lines. This is an easy fix. Drag the background layer over to the create new layer icon. This will create a copy of the background layer.

8: Now delete the original background layer and you should now be able to drag the background copy on top of the new layer.

9: One more important step: If we paint on our new layer now the background copy layer will block it. To solve this select the background copy layer and set the blending options to 'Darken'.

10. Now for some color. I want a pastel shade to start with so click the color picker (a) then click 'Custom' when the pop up screen appears (b).

From the drop down menu you'll find lots of custom color books. I chose PANTONE pastel coated.

11: choose a nice soft brush and start painting the skin color. Don't do too much at a time, because if you have to undo something you'll have to redo a great area. Instead use short, even strokes.

12: Make a new layer and choose a new color to finish the hair.

13: If you have a large area to paint, just outline the area, then click the paint bucket tool (G on the keyboard) and click anywhere inside the area. This will fill the area inside. You might have a faint line to touch up but it is still a much faster way.

14: As I wanted a more 'cartoony' look to the image, I didn't paint right to the edges of the black lines. Look closely at the green lines in the image below. I bet you're thinking that I have an amazingly steady hand don't you? Well, no. Here's another trick. To paint perfectly straight lines, grab your paint brush and click once where you want the line to begin. Now move the cursor to where you want the line to finish, press and hold SHIFT, and click again. You now have a perfectly straight line.