This technique takes a photographic image and converts it to a pencilsketch. The effect works best with reasonably large, clear photos, withgood contrast and lighting. It DOES NOT work well with photos that aretoo dark or which are blurry. This tutorial uses mostly the filters builtinto PSP 5, but for the best results, you'll need the Elliminate Whitefilter available at Edesign.

Start with a good sized photo with good contrast and focus. Here I'veused a photo of a horse that I obtained from ArtToday. Duplicate the background layer for later use (Layers: Duplicate).Then create a third blank layer between the two. To do this using the Layersmenu, click on the first (background) layer, and then go to Layers:New.
 
 
 

The basic pencil sketch effect is the result of the middle layer we'regoing to create. For purposes of keeping load time down, I'm only goingto show a small portion of this layer. First, make sure that the middlelayer is selected in the Layers menu. Now, to see what you're doing, goto Layers, View: Current Only. You should now see a blank layer with thecheckerboard pattern indicating complete transparency. First, fill thislayer with white using the Floodfill tool. Next we add some Uniform Noise.(Image, Noise:Add) Check Uniform Noise and set the slider to 30%.
 
 

Now we blur the image using the built-in Motion Blur filter (Image,Blur:Motion Blur). Set the direction to about 222, and the Intensity to15 pixels.
 
 
 
 

The image that we have is very light. To dark it up, go to Colors, Adjust:Hue/Saturation/Lightness. Leave the Hue and Saturation set to 0, and slidethe Lightness down to -42.
 
 
 
 

Now we do some adjustments. The color is too dense to get the individuallines we want, so we go to Colors, Adjust: Highlight/Midtone/Shadow. Setthe Highlight slider to 44, the Midtone to 0, and the Shadow to 92. Thiswill give a speckled pattern like the one shown below.
 
 
 
 

We want the final pencil image to be in shades of gray, so this is asgood a time as any to do that. Simply go to Colors: Grey Scale. Then increasethe color depth back to 16 million colors (Colors, Increase Color Depth:16 Million Colors.)
 
 
 
 

To make those fine lines we need, first we Motion Blur the layer again,using the same settings as before.
 
 
 
 

Then we sharpen it up a bit. Use the Sharpen More filter three times(Image, Sharpen: Sharpen More.) At this point, you might want to save acopy of this layer for use in other graphics (Edit: Copy, then Edit: PasteAs  New Image. Save as a jpg). This will save you lots of steps thenext time you do a pencil sketch. Just use the graphic as a pattern todo a flood fill in the middle layer.
 
 
 
 

To get the pencil sketch effect, go to the Layers menu and Click Properties.The Layer properties box will pop up. Change the Blend mode from Normalto Dodge. Your graphic will now go black. Don't worry, it's because you'reonly viewing the middle layer currently. Click okay, and then return tothe Layers menu and click on the BAckground Layer to see the effect
 
 
 

I think this is just a bit light. To adjust this, we can change thelayer opacity of that second layer. In the Layers menu, click on the 2ndlayer again to select it, then click Properties. Set the layer opacityto about 80. You may need to play with this setting to get the best effectfor your photo. Darker photos seem to need an even lower opacity settingfor best results.
 
 
 
 

This looks good, but in a pencil sketch, you expect things to be outlineda little. To create that effect, we now turn to the third layer, the copyof the background that we created earlier. Select it in the Layers menu,and then go to Image, Edges: Trace Contour. this will give you a whitebackground with black lines where contrasting colors met.
 
 
 

To finish use the Elliminate White Filter. This will remove the whitebackground from the third layer and leave nothing but the dark outlines.The Elliminate White filter appears in your Plugins Menu under the headingof Transparency.
 
 
 
 

Some very interesting effects can be achieved by playing with this technique.For example, the "Noise" layer that you saved can be used to create ColoredPencil sketches. Simply apply it as a pattern to a second layer over acolor photo, set the Layer properties to Dodge, and adjust the opacityas desired. You may have seen graphics like this in magazine ads.