Turning a Photo Into Line Art

1. crisderaud19 January 2012, 22:00 GMT +01:00

Deke shares one of his most asked-for techniques, how to turn an ordinary portrait into a line drawing. It seems that when people encounter wonderful photo-realistic line drawings out in the wild, they immediately equate said photo-realism with Photoshop. And, if nature didn't endow you with the ability to draw, then applying some careful Photoshop effects to a well chosen photo is indeed the way to go.

In this week's free movie, you'll see how to take a photographic portrait; apply the Photocopy filter; and then adjust and finesse your drawing with the Levels command, Gaussian Blur, a little hand work (you're calling it a "drawing" after all); and finally apply some advanced layer effects. The result is a technique that promises to work on any striking portrait.

http://youtu.be/jgOgxATmaNw