Preserved Topic: turning photos into lines

ive tried using smart blur and then find edges but it comes ou to messy. ive tried the threshold thing and that doesnt work to well either. is there a way to turn a photo into like lineart? thanks.

If you're scanning....try scanning as line art. If not... try a combination of desaturate & levels & thresholds & curves. Can get some interesting effects.

Curves and Levels is one of my favorite combos. Adjustment Layer > Curves, then Adjustment Layer > Levels on top of that. Fiddle to your hearts content.



-schitzophrenia has benefits

Well i've used this before, and it works quite well.......but im not in front of photoshop so i might screw sumthin up.

1. Open a photo of your choice

2. Duplicate layer (Layers/duplicate) Keep second layer active

3. Convert to grayscale (Image/Mode/Grayscale)

4. Invert (Image/Adjust/Invert Do not flatten image

5. On layers menu scroll to color dodge instead of normal

6. This will turn your image white. Use the slider to adjust your opacity. I usually use about 80%

7. Go to Filter/Blur/Gaussian either 2 or 3 whichever you prefer.

and presto, bammo, slammo.............instant drawing.

Nice effect el grande! I tried it out just for the heck of it and it turned out pretty neat. Where did you pick that trick up from?

As stated, it all depends on what you want to do with it, of course.

I find in a lot of cases it's easiest for the photo to line conversion if you just copy the photograph, paste into a channel, then use Ctrl+I to invert the black and white..play with the brightness and set the contrast to 100%.

Then run a small blur (nothing major, just to smooth the jaggies a bit) then do a levels adjustment to bring your blurred curves more into a tighter focus.

Use that channel selection and fill a layer with black, over a background of white.

It's fast and dirty, but it can be a two second solution when you just want some good outlines. More time should be spent with adjustment layers, and levels if you need a higher end result. Then working with texturing and fills to mock up real "line art" from those selections could be your next step. Or dealing with halftones on channel layers...

So many ways, find the best one for you

Peter




ICQ:# 10237808

dun mind me asking, the effects that you all are trying to achieve is to turn the photo till it looks like a drawing? Is that correct? Coz i tried the steps but dunno whether it's what it shld be. LOL.

evo.lanche - evolve. the only constant in life.

erhmm.. no replies from anyone? hehehe

evo.lanche - evolve. the only constant in life.

el_Grande, I stumbled onto that same technique a few weeks ago. My version is slightly different, though. Been having lots of fun playing with it.


-Comin' to getcha

Basic idea. I used the channel method, but played with the curves and levels after a very slight blur to remove the graininess.

Hi DarkGarden, thanks for the explicit and clear display of the effects that u guys are trying to achieve.
I tried to follow your steps but erhmm.. the picture din turn out "correct". heh.

I'm quite a clown when it comes to PS, is it possible if you could do clearer "step-by-step" instructions for this? Sorry for the inconvenience. If it's too troublesome, do you have any sites where I can learn this? I am very keen to learn how to create this effect.

evo.lanche - evolve. the only constant in life.

Summarized off http://robouk.gdesign.nl/tuts/tutorial.php?tutorial=drawimg

Smart Blur with a low radius, threshold roughly 56, high quality and mode set to Edge only

Invert colors and voila!



.. One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor ..

Maestro:
Okee, step by step, here's what I did for that one.

Open photo.

Select>>>All, Copy

Go to Channels palette, Create New Channel, Paste, Ctrl+I to invert.

Use Curves to even out the tones a bit.

Up the Brightness and Contrast (high contrast, then play with the brightness to where you want it, you'll see.)

Gaussian Blur (slight, just to clear any jagged edges, and smooth the tones a bit.

Adjust>>>Levels and make it nice and smooth, black and white.

Make a selection from the channel, and go back to the Layers palette.

New Layer, fill with black.

Deselect, create another New Layer underneath that one, fill it all with white.

Done deal.

I played with the colour background a bit in the same way, to block the colours, then dropped the opacity on the white layer, to get the colour edges around the black lines, for fun.

That's all there is to that one. Other methods here work just as well, or better depending on what result you want. Play, goof around, find what method works best for you.

Hope it helps.

Peter





ICQ:# 10237808

1. dupe the orig photo
2. new layer fill with white/apply noise/motion blur/choose amount/angle
3. mode/grayscale/dont flatten
4. image/adjuts/levels on the duped
5. dupe the duped layer and put it on top of the layer stack
6. filter/stylize/find edges
7. play with the layer modes/opacities of your layers
8. 20mins in the oven at gas mark 8
9 cool b4 serving

orig .psd (zipped 325k)

~Vp~

thks darkgarden & vogonpoet for taking the time to help me out on this.
some questions (again!?) hehe.

what does changing the levels actually do? there are 3 arrow indicators that i can shift around, what do they actually do? As in when we are changing the levels, what is it that we are actually doing ?

evo.lanche - evolve. the only constant in life.

Maestro:

The three arrows are for shadows, midtones, and highlights.

Sliding the black arrow (Shadows) toward the midtones will make the greys closer to the midtones even out in contrast, in essence enlarging the shadowed areas. Sliding the white arrow (highlights) toward the midtones will make the greys closer to whites and midtones start to even out in contrast. And with that, sliding the grey arrow (midtones) either way will change the midtones to a darker, or lighter shade, respectively.

Play with the levels, and see what happens. If you keep the sliders completely together, you'll see that areas of gradient, or "smooth" curves will become jaggy, because the midtones that show it as an "anti-aliased" curve will become darker, and fill the pixels with black eventually.

That's the short explanation

Hope it helps.

Peter

http://www.carlvolk.com/photoshop02.htm

check out the other tuts there also
you might enjoy this link

wow, both of you have been really very helpful, appreciate your help!
the explanation as well as the site proved a lot more insight to the whole 'level' issue.

when it comes to the adjusting curves/levels etc, i am totally lost. just wanna check with you guys something else. when you mentioned about the midtone, highlights and shadow... what does it refer to ? issit like the highlights are the 'white', shadow 'the dark' and midtone 'the middle color btw the hightlights and shadow' ? LOL. yup.. i really noe nuts!

evo.lanche - evolve. the only constant in life.

Yes.