Tutorial: Using a texture to make a photo look like a colored pencil drawing

Taking a close-up of fruit on a tree in direct light creates some pretty harsh shadows. But you can make that kind of photo work for you by turning it into a piece of art that looks like a colored pencil drawing.

Here's how I do it...

I open the photo in Photoshop. I use CS3 but this will also work in Photoshop Elements and other versions (you can also use this method in other software programs that allow you to work with layers).

When I open the photo in CS3, the photo is the first layer in the file (sometimes it's named "Background").

Using the "Place" command (under the "File" menu), I place a texture file as a new layer.

In this case, I placed my texture "Arroyo" from  The American West texture variety pack (available by clicking below).

When I first place the texture it may not be the same size as the photo.

I then resize the texture layer by pulling the resizing squares on each corner so it completely covers the photo layer underneath it. It ends up looking like this:

The next step is to make the texture layer slightly transparent so you can see the photo through it and get the effect of the texture overlaid onto with the original photo.

In this case, with the texture layer selected I went to the "Layers" menu (in CS3 you can see it in the right hand side of your workspace) and changed the opacity to 50%.

 It made the image look like this:

You can experiment by sliding the opacity up or down to find the right fit for your photo. Remember, nothing is permanent and you aren't changing the original photo at all.

I liked the 50% for this texture and photo pairing. It gave me enough texture to but let the details of the photo show through (this is why a photo with harsh shadows works really well with this technique).

At this point, I could actually leave the photo the way it is, save it, and I'm done. But I like to tweak things a bit more after this step by accentuating certain elements in the photograph that I can only determine by hand.

To do that, I first have to turn the texture layer from an uneditable "smart object" into something I can edit with all my Photoshop tools (if you're using a different program that let you place the texture as an editable object on top of the photo then you don't have to do this step). So I rasterize the texture layer by right clicking on the texture layer in my Layers panel.

Then, I select the eraser tool:

I set the opacity of the eraser to 5-10%:

I choose a soft-edged brush at about 100 (this will depend on the size of your photo and you will probably change the size of the brush a couple of times as you edit):

Then with the texture layer selected, I start strategically erasing certain shadows around the center of the bottom of the apple to bring out the details of. I use a digital tablet and stylus so it feels like I'm "drawing", but you can do the same thing with your mouse. Gentle strokes from the darkest shadows out toward the lighter areas mimic brush or pencil strokes. With the opacity set very low I only take away a little at bit at a time and feather out from the darker shadows.

 I only erase just a little here and there to draw out some of the detail in the focal points of the photo. The reason I'm doing this is I'm mimicking how colored pencil would look on paper. The areas with shadows would get more colored pencil on them so the paper wouldn't show through as much as the lighter areas that barely have any colored pencil on them. For areas of really white highlights where you'd use a white pencil to define them if you were drawing, the same holds true because the white pencil would mask the texture of the paper.

I erase more in the deepest shadows and the lightest highlights until I get it to look exactly how I want:

As always don't hesitate to ask me questions in your comments.

I will do my best to answer them here as a reply comment 
or privately if you have an email address connected to your comment.

Happy creating and remember...

Tutorial: Creating a sepia line drawing with a vintage look in Photoshop

Click on any of the images in this post to view larger

I thought it would be fun to share with you how I create vintage looking sepia line illustration using textures and Photoshop.

I did a rough sketch of a little dog on the back of some scratch paper when I was sitting in a meeting (it keeps me focused). I sketched it with the ballpoint pen that I had with me and didn't worry about the scratchy sketch lines that always happen when I sketch. I wanted the dog to be in a stretching "play with me" pose so I roughed out the basic shapes of its body lightly and then sketched in the details over the top with heavier strokes. If I make a mistake, I don't worry about it. Afterall, it's a sketch.


Once I was in the mood to start playing with the sketch some more, I scanned it on my flatbed scanner so I had it in my computer as a TIFF file.

Then I opened the TIFF file in Photoshop and started cleaning it up. For clean-up work, I use a Wacom digital tablet and digital pen on the eraser setting with a crisp edged brush at various diameters (you can also use the mouse and your monitor to do this).

I liked some of the sketchy lines, so I was careful to not erase those because they looked kind of like fur.

After the little dog was cleaned up to my satisfaction, I opened a new Photoshop file and using the "Place" command placed the cleaned up sketch as one layer in the new document.

Next, I used the same command to place a texture as another layer so it covered the first sketch layer. In this case, I used a scan of an old page of a book I had. Any scan of old paper will work.

To change the color of the blue ballpoint sketch, I went into "Curves" to adjust the RGB levels on the sketch layer and tweaked them until the sketch lines were a warm brown. I just eyeball it as I go and don't worry about specific numbers.

Then I selected the layer with the dog sketch and it a "Linear Burn" over the old page layer to make them more cohesive like I'd sketched the dog on the old paper with sepia ink.

As always don't hesitate to ask me questions in your comments.

I will do my best to answer them here as a reply comment.

Happy creating and remember...

Create beauty, not deadlines

Tutorial: How to make a photo look like a pastel or chalk drawing

All textures used in this tutorial are available for instant download at
www.RosehavenCottageDownloads.com

For this tutorial, I thought it would be fun to share how I go about digitally altering a photograph to make it look like a chalk or pastel drawing like "Autumnal Bouquet" (above).


The first thing I do is find a promising photograph that I've taken of a flower arrangement. I find that the best floral photos are taken in indirect natural light. That means that if the object I'm shooting is being lit by sun come in a nearby window without directly shining on the object, it'll be great lighting. I like to use auto-focus when I shoot so that I get a crisp focus. I aim at the central object in the arrangement (in this case the yellow mum) and then shoot. I take multiple shots just to be sure I've gotten one really good sharp shot.

After I take it back to my computer and bring it into Photoshop (I use CS3, but Photoshop Elements will work too), I make the photograph the first layer in a file.

Then I use the "Place" command to place a texture from a separate file into my current file as a new layer. In this instance, I used my own texture "Toasted Marshmallow" (available in my Texture Confections variety pack by clicking here).


I enlarge the texture so that it covers the original photo layer completely (don't worry, the other layer is just underneath like one piece of paper on top of another). Then with the new texture layer selected I go to my "Layers" menu and select "Screen". Then I reduce the opacity of the texture layer to 60%. And it looks like this:



Next, I use the "Place" command again to add another texture layer. This time it's my own texture "Chaps" from The American West variety pack (available by clicking here).

I rotate and resize the texture so it covers the other two beneath it completely. Then I select the texture layer and reduce the opacity to 70% so it looks like this:


See how it's starting to look like a faint drawing? At this point, with the top texture still selected, I change to the eraser tool and choose a soft edged brush at 10% opacity. Using my digital tablet and stylus (you can do it with a mouse too although it's easier with the tablet and stylus). I "draw" on the edges of the petals to erase away the edges where the light highlights them. I erase away in shadows too. I change the size of my eraser depending on the detail I'm erasing. For the petals, I use a small eraser and for the background I use a large eraser.

Then if I want to enhance some of the shadows and highlights even more, I select the original photograph layer and with the dodge and burn tool set at 10%, I "draw" over a few of the highlights and shadows to really accentuate them as if I was going in with white or dark chalk and deepening those areas.

And the final result looks the photo at the beginning of this post!

As always don't hesitate to ask me questions in your comments.

I will do my best to answer them here as a reply comment.

Happy creating and remember...

Create beauty, not deadlines