Ever since that thread last week on making charcoal sketches, I have been become obsessed with making them…or maybe possessed is more like it! Here’s my best ones so far. <http://www.pbase.com/omd01639/sketch>
The portraits (#4 & 5) are my favorites. These are just edited crops from family photos. I found a way to bring out the lights areas (to represent the paper) and to make the shadows (the charcoal) more pronounced. It’s not too involved, but I will share it in a new post, just in case.
I’ve tried these steps on high resolution photos as well as images from the web. The high res ones work better, but most are doable with this method if you clean up the photo first and use something to exaggerrate the shadow details.
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Hope my step #’s come through alright. I’ll cors my fingers. ๐
TTFN…Patti
—————————– PHOTO TO CHARCOAL SKETCH Note: Adjust any of the filter sliders to suit your image. I find that different resolutions will result in different looks. Your mileage may vary. I learned the Color Dodge-Gaussian Blur trick on a Corel PhotoPaint newsgroup. Itยs a way to get the shadows to stand out and leave nice smoothly transitioned open areas for the *paper* part of the charcoal sketch.
1. Work on a duplicate image. Clean up photo first. Remove any unwanted details.
2. Convert Image to Grayscale. Image menu>Mode>Grayscale. Use Burn tool to bring out areas of low contrast, if necessaryย like ears or the sides of a white egret.
3. Image menu>Enhance>Levels. Adjust levels for good contrast; increase the shadows without loosing detail. (If you have the Curves add-on, it helps!)
4. On Layers palette, duplicate the image twice. Turn off visibility on background layer and leave it alone. This is so you can go back to the original fixed image if necessary.
5. Select the top layer duplicate and change it to a negative image. Image menu> Adjustments>Invert (Ctrl+I)
6. Still on the top layer, change the blending mode to Color Dodge. It will look like everything in your image disappears, but fear not, and move on to the next stepย
7. Apply Gaussian blur. Filters>Blur>Gaussian blur. Increase the percentage all the way to the right or almost all the way, bringing out the shadow details of the image which is what we want for a good charcoal sketch. It will now look like a soft pencil sketch without any stroke details.
8. Filters>Sketch>Graphic Pen. Decrease the stroke length to about 3 or 4. Keep the light/dark balance at about 50%.
9. Filters>Blur>Blur More. Repeat Blur More (Ctrl+F) two or three more times until you smooth out the sketchy look of the graphic pen so that it looks more like smudged charcoal.
10. Combine the visible layers onto a new layer. To do this, create a new blank layer on top and then use Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E. I like to do this in case I want to go back and change something later.
11. To get the textured paper, create a new blank layer above the new sketch layer and then use Filter>Texturizer. Try Canvas or Sandstone. Settings are up to you. Set the blending mode to Multiply and lower the opacity a little if desired.
#6 looks like Gregory Peck… is he in your family photos?!?
Heehee, not hardly. Mr Peck IS in my top ten list of actors, though. ๐ That was one of the web images I tried. It was a biggy — 1596 x 1596. The resolution was crappy, but it made nice guinea pig to work on.
I meant to mention…you might recognize #1 and #3. I was in Florida the week of Chris’s #51 Challenge (I was taking photos of dead trees and egrets –ha!), but I couldn’t resist playing with it anyway. ๐
Byron, the steps are only guidelines, of course. We all know that there are a gazillion ways you can adjust things in Elements to make them suit what you’re doing. Until a better way comes up, this color dodge+Gaussian blur is the best way I found to get nice blank areas to represent the paper. I’m very open to additions, corrections and improvements!
That’s cool, Patti – a really nice technique – I think I like number 4 the best, in terms of imitating a drawing. Picking/manipulating an image where the essence still shows up in high contrast seems to be the key to getting an effective reult with this sort of sketch technique. Lovely work!
I made what I think is a good charcoal sketch the first day I got Elements but can’t for the life of me remember how I did it. I was just playing around and arrived at it.
I’d like to post it but don’t have a website. If there’s a way to copy and paste a photo here, I’ll post it.
I made what I think is a good charcoal sketch the first day I got Elements but can’t for the life of me remember how I did it. I was just playing around and arrived at it. I’d like to post it but don’t have a website. If there’s a way to copy and paste a photo here, I’ll post it.
RegisDale, there are lots of places on the web that will let you upload photos and images for free. Epson has a really good one that’s very straighforward, reputable and easy to use. Click on the Learn More link for instructions: <http://photo.epson.com/>
A lot of us on the forum use PBase.com, it costs $23/year. They have a 30 day free trial if you want to try it out.
As far as remembering what steps you took, I understand what you mean! If it’s something I really want to be able to repeat, I write down the steps as I go along and I also rename layers to help me remember.
Hi Patti, These are really lovely! Thanks for posting the instructions too. I love the tree also. I also use Club Photo and Shutterfly in addition to Pbase. The first two will print your pictures on real photo paper, you select the size and whatever. Jane
PATTI, BYRON, … Gotta agree, that must be Gregory Peck! If any of you youngsters haven’t seen his movies "Spellbound" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" you should rush out and get one. Old movies are sometimes slow moving but these are still 2 of my favorites. Patti, I like the #6 drift wood picture but all are good. Anyone know where I can find a generic pill that will let me live 30 more years so I can learn all this neat stuff!
Hi Patti, Just was looking thru my bookmarks and found this from a while ago. <http://www.pbase.com/isabel95/elementspencilsketch> These are so beautiful, This is a whole new part of PSE that I would love to have the time to attempt. Jane
Hi Patti, Your charcoal sketches are great & many thanks for posting the instructions. My husband & I spent the afternoon attempting to duplicate what you accomplished. We did okay & we were quite pleased with the results. Can you help with a couple of questions. On step #10, we created a new blank layer but did not understand the keyboard command, I have a Mac so we got lost there, did not know what to do with the blank layer. Same problem with #11, did not know what to do with the new blank layers. We winged it & all worked okay, But I am worried that we missed two important steps. Any help you can offer will be much appreciated.
Can you help with a couple of questions. On step #10, we created a new blank layer but did not understand the keyboard command, I have a Mac so we got lost there, did not know what to do with the blank layer. Same problem with #11, did not know what to do with the new blank layers.
Monica, This command merges a copy all visible layers and puts it on the target or rather the active layer. For a Mac: Command+Option+Shift+E. You add the new blank layer and select it so that the new merged image will go onto it. If you don’t add the new layer, it will go onto whichever one is selected. You could flatten the image of course, but then you can’t go back and make any changes.
The purpose of the new layer for the texture is to keep it separate from the sketch so that you can adjust the opacity. Another way to get a paper surface texture is to add a new pattern fill layer and then use one of the textures there (Layer menu>New Fill layer>Pattern). There are some nice artists surfaces you can try. When you’ve got the texture you want, select that layer and change the Blend mode to Overlay or Soft Light.
Hi Patti, Just was looking thru my bookmarks and found this from a while ago. <http://www.pbase.com/isabel95/elementspencilsketch> These are so beautiful, This is a whole new part of PSE that I would love to have the time to attempt.
Thanks, Jane! Wow, this lady’s work is fantastic! I downloaded the pdf tutorial for her method of creating pencil sketches and guess what? She uses the Color Dodge step too! I guess I’m on the right track. ๐
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