October Technique Challenge: Sketchy Photos

Hi there and welcome to this month's technique challenge. I am excited to be bringing you this month's technique. This is something that I have seen a while ago and always wanted to try. I am going to attempt to walk you through giving your photo a sketched quality like that in my layout below.


Shall we get started? This technique works best on a neutral white paper. So find one and open it in Photoshop. Then open your photo and place it on your paper. Duplicate your photo and make the copy invisible.


Click on the visible photo layer. In the "Filter" menu (located along the top bar of photoshop), select "Stylize" and then "Find Edges." Now hit Ctrl + Alt + U and set the Saturation to -100. Now hit Ctrl + M and change the curve to something like this.


Now to make the white disappear from our sketch. In the layers pallet setting change the setting from "Normal" to "Darken." Next add a mask to this sketch layer by clicking on the little icon at the bottom of the pallet that is shown here. Then use a soft brush in the mask to cover any of the sketch lines that you don't want to see. For example those along the defining edges of the photo.


You should have something like this now.


Now you are ready to add the real photo back to the layout. So make it visible and then add a mask to it as we did in the previous step but this time hold down the Alt key when you click the mask icon. your mask will be black and make the photo disappear. This time when you use a soft brush, you will need to paint in white to reveal the photo. Start with a low opacity and just keep painting until you achieve the look you want. If you paint too much you can always change your brush to black and paint it away again. It will look something like this.


You are now ready to add whatever finishing touches you want to complete your page. I hope you will give this a try and enjoy the end result. Remember, you could win a $5 DHD gift certificate, so make sure you upload your layout to the technique challenge gallery and post the link to this thread. I can't wait to see your sketchy photos.

So, it is always a challenge to do a technique challenge that is written for PS users when you use something else (in my case SBC). I thought this was one that we had a short-cut button on. I started like this:
Step 1 - add photo to your layout
Step 2 - add duplicate of photo right under first photo
Step 2 - with top photo highlighted, click on the Format tab and then click on Filters
Step 3 - Under Stylize tab, click on Canny Edge. Play with the numbers of your Smoothness, Bandwidth and Threshold to your likeness. (For mine, I dialed the Smoothness all the way up, the Threshold all the way down and left the Bandwidth in the middle)
Step 4 - For your bottom photo, change Opacity to blend more into the background. (I moved the Opacity to about 31%)
I am not sure if it is exactly what you achieved, but it seems to be pretty close.

Cool technique, Tiffany. I've been wondering how the sketchy-kinda look is achieved - and now i have instructions to try! Meagan, would love to see how your version comes out in SBC.

I would love instructions for Photoshop Elements as well.

This is VERY cool...Did not read throughthe instructions yet, and many ways to make a sketch, so I will be interested in working through this one and seeing how you went about it...Actually one of my favorite things to do...sketches that is...Really like the photo you used...

I will have to put together a page with that image

So, here is mine. I listed my steps in the credits
[url][url]http://www.designhousedigital.com/gallery/technique-challenge/p25518-big-boots26amp-3b-big-me.html[/url][/url]

nana_vg, the PSE instructions aren't all that different. Where Tiffany used ctrl-m to adjust her curves, instead go up to your toolbar and select Enhance>Adjust color>Adjust color curves and play with the sliders until you like what you see. The rest of the instructions work exactly the same. Knock the opacity on your white brush in the layer mask on the original photo down to about 35% and don't stop brushing until you've got the whole image revealed. Then go back and go over areas you want to be more defined. I did this little test image in about 5 minutes.

PSE7 user here...here is my attempt to do sketchy (did it 3 ways)

I am so glad you ladies are savvy and figured out how to achieve this look in other programs. I love all the sketchy looks you achieved. WTG!