line drawings from photos

hi, i'm trying to create a decent quality line drawing from a photo, can anyone tell me how to do this or tell me where i can find a tutorial?

basically its a picture of a person and i want to end up with a line drawing showing the main outlines, features and things like creases in clothes etc.

many thanks

1. Open the image you want to use

2. Duplicate the layer

3. With the background layer selected (clicked and blue)

4. Image/Adjust/Invert

5. Then - Image/Mode/Greyscale (Do Not Flatten)

6. On the background copy layer change the blend mode to Color Dodge

7. Filter/Blur/Guassian Blur/blur to your taste.

"from photoshop user members section"

get better results....

take your image and duplicate the layer (just to have a backup copy) sharpen the heck out of it with the "unsharp mask filter.

next use the Filter>Other>high pass.... tinker with that till you make the "hard" lines of the image appear to seperate from the image....

next go into "Levels" and adjust the contrast to get rid of the gray and keep the hard lines.


this was a quick explaination.... if you don't get it....just say so and I'll go into more detail.

this is the result:

thanks guys, given both your ideas a go and both work well but i'm struggling to make all the lines smooth and of decent quality. i need the finished art work to be of decent quality as its for a t shirt print. any ideas on how to improve?

what about if i want all the lines to be the same thickness and colour, i.e. no shading?

tornupinside would you mind going into a little more detail on your method?

thanks a lot.

For "all the lines to be the same thickness and colour, i.e. no shading" You'll have to do ALOT of manual tracing and tweaking. It can be done.....its just not something you are going to do in 20 minutes.

Further detail on the "line art from photos" deal

-Lets begin

Open the image you wish to work with.


FIlter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask (settings will vary according to the photograph) try these settings:
Amount = 159
Radius = 3.5
Treshold = 0

Click OK

Next....

Filter>Other>High Pass (again settings will vary)
but try somewhere between 1.0 and 2.5

Click OK

Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask (again)
Use the same setting as before.
Amount = 159
Radius = 3.5
Treshold = 0

Click OK

Next....

Image>Mode>Grayscale

Image>Adjust>Levels

In the levels pallet there will be 3 little "eyedroppers" click on the one far right....then click in the Image somewhere in the "Gray" colored area that is the background of the image....

This will move your white point to make the image look like lineart.

You might have to do some tweaking...painting ...erasing and stuff....but thats the way I do it.

Next if I wanted like you said..."consistant" lines...I would take it make a new layer and start making "paths" that I could stroke to give me what I want.

Hope this helps.

The images I toy'd with while typing this for you.>>

Thanks for this Torn, I didn't get the results I wanted but ended up with something better!!