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Help with sketch effect or something similar!


Streaky

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Hi folks!

I'm in the process of building a toy website and could really use some help populating it! Essentially what I would like to do is take some comic panels or drawings and just have the sketch outlines of those drawings. So for example in a panel that has Spider-man fighting Rhino (or something similar!) I just want to take Spider-man out of that frame, remove all colour and objects, and just have the outline of his features so it looks like a sketch.

Is there an easy way (or just a way!) for me to do this in photoshop or even illustrator? I'm fairly new to both packages but happy to learn. Thanks so much for any help!
 
If you post one concrete example, you will likely get more responses. It would be best if you could post both a typical starting image AND an image that looks like what you want to achieve.

Tom
 
Here's a slightly different version than Clare made, but we probably used a similar technique.

I won't explain my technique until the OP responds.

Spiderman_01.png
 
Hey guys, sorry, went away for a few days. These are awesome!! They're exactly what I'm looking for! Any approach from you two would be great, although I think my favourite is the second one from ibclare
 
Welcome back.

This is done simply using the adjustment>threshold command. The second one puts two layers of spidey together with 2 levels of threshold adjustments. Pretty basic.
Sam's technique is more elegant, maybe more detail than you want? But the edges are better. So what was your method Sam?
 
FWIW, almost every developer of Photoshop plugins or filters has one or more modules available to simulate sketching efx. Here's a bunch of them. The file name on each tells you what plugin was used. BTW, "PRP" stands for "Power Retouche Pro", a somewhat older suite of PS filters, but nice and still very usable.

Tom

Sketching_efx-_0012_PS _Find Edges_.jpg
Sketching_efx-_0001_Medhi edge FX + lvls.jpg
Sketching_efx-_0003_a little of everything.jpg
Sketching_efx-_0005_PRP Edgline _soft multicolor_.jpg
Sketching_efx-_0006_PRP Edgeline _edge detection_.jpg
Sketching_efx-_0007_PS _stamp_.jpg
Sketching_efx-_0008_PS _photocopy_.jpg
Sketching_efx-_0009_Tiffen DFX pencil.jpg
Sketching_efx-_0010_PS _trace contour_.jpg
Sketching_efx-_0011_PS _glowing edges_.jpg
Sketching_efx-_0000_Topaz Simplify.jpg
 
Tom - Of all those, the very last one is my favorite!

Clare - I first removed the BG. I then added a stoke at this point so it would not distort later in the process. I then desaturated. Used posterize. Lastly, I added a film grain.

Very simple and a variety of affects can be achieved by using different settings in the posterize step. Also different affects can be applied instead of film grain in the end.
 
Hi Sam - Depending on the intended use, I'd probably would agree with you. My only reservation about that one is if the final product, for some reason, absolutely must have no shading -- just lines, then it wouldn't be appropriate. But visually, it really appeals to me, as well.

Cheers,

T
 
Guys, I just wanted to thank you all for your efforts, I really couldn't appreciate it more, thanks so much!

Now I've just got to figure out if there's any difficulties with copyrights that I hadn't considered! I know it's not really the forum for it, but if I'm populating a website that is used to sell toys with images like this, does anyone know if that's a problem? I hadn't considered it, but technically the original image is someone else's property...
 
Thank you, I thought it might be tricky. Hmm, I doubt I will get an answer from a lot of the artists responsible for such work. May have to rethink matters
 
You might want to go to one of the really popular cartoon sites, like Disney, and see if there is a discussion on copyrights for their characters. Maybe there is a way to contact their legal departments for more information. I understand it would be laborious to do that for every cartoon you use, but especially if it is for a commercial site, the legal consequences could be more hassle than getting permissions.
 
Streaky, good luck on the copyright issues. I'm sure that, at worst, very reasonable licensing fees can be negotiated (eg, a small fraction of your sales).

Also, don't forget that there are many other treatments of these images that give a strong "graphic" look. These include line screens, half-tone dots and stochastic halftoning (see below).

T

Spiderman-1-tjm01-acr-ps13_698px_wide_line_screen_efx-02_698px_wide.jpgSpiderman-1-tjm01-acr-ps12_698px_wide_half_tone_efx-04_grid_halftone_698px_wide.jpgSpiderman-1-tjm01-acr-ps12_698px_wide_half_tone_efx-02_698px_wide.jpg
 

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