Create Basic Line Art from Your Photos

This Photoshop tutorial will turn your photos into line art with just a few quick steps. You find that this tutorial works well for most objects !

However you will find that this technique does not work well with photos of humans. Let's get started...

1. Preparing the Image

First you want to isolate the object and delete the rest of the photo i.e. the background.

To cut out the gun I use the Pen Tool. Now to some-up how to use Photoshop's pen tool in a few sentences isn't easy...

Remember to make sure the pen tool is set to create a Work Path. See below.

Take the pen tool create a path around the gun.

Now go to your Paths palette. (There are 3 tabs on the Layers window, so click on the Paths tab to reveal the Paths palette. See image below).

Load path as a selection. (Click on the dotted circle button at the bottom of the Paths palette). See the image above.

Change your tool to the Move Tool (hit the V key)

Copy this selection. Ctrl + C

Paste Ctrl + V

Go back to your "Layers" palette and rename this new layer "gun".

Create a new layer ( ).

Fill it white.

Rename it "background" and place it below the "gun" layer. See image below.

Finally make sure your image doesn't have any colour...

Image>>Adjust>>Desaturate...

(Although it's not 100% necessary to desaturate the image, you'll find that you generally achieve better results if you include this step).

2. Creating the Lines

Working on the "gun" layer apply the Smart Blur filter.

Filter >> Blur >> Smart Blur...

Set the Quality to High and the Mode to Edge Only. Adjust the sliders for the Radius and Threshold while watching YOUR preview. When you achieve the desired result click OK. My settings are shown below.

Now invert the image

Image >> Adjust >> Invert

Apply a black stroke to your "gun" layer.

Edit >> Stroke...

Adjust the Stroke Width to suit your picture and click ok.

Almost there...

Now to make the existing lines jump out a bit and look more defined use the filter Poster Edges

Filter >> Artistic >> Poster Edges

You could stop there because it's probably looking great now but let's make it fantastic!

Apply the Cutout filter with settings similar to what is shown below.

Filter >> Artistic >> Cutout...

"Oh yes"

Inevitably you will have a few unwanted squiggles here and there. Just clean them up using your paint tool if you want it perfect.

That's it!

I hope you found this Photoshop tutorial helpful.