Sketching is key skill for any designer or an artist. Some designers believe totally in softwares like Photoshop or Painter & some believe that softwares are just media. Traditional artists also believe that Softwares cannot give a  joy of traditional media. So they keep working with pencils, watercolors, oils and others. Personally I belong to this later category of artists, but in case of low budget project, you need to use softwares to fake traditional media and achieve your desired painting, sketch effect in cheap price and less time.
I did this experiment while I was working on some old photos for a website. During R&D of this project I had some ideas to convert photos in sketches. I would like to share it with you.[ I know there are lot of tricks on internet already posted. What I am going to share here is just my experience. ]

For this tutorial I am using a photo of my uncle and friend Dr. Rajendra Kulkarni.

Final Image

Application : Photoshop Cs4
Tools used : brush, eraser
Device : Wacom Intuos 3 tablet.

Step 01

Open any photograph that has good tonal, color values in it. Its suggested for good results only.

Duplicate background layer by pressing Ctrl+j twice. Now you should have  following layers in layers palette.

Step 02

Select top layer and go to image >> adjustments > gradient map.

You will get something like above when you apply standard black to white gradient.
Then go  to filters >> stylize > & apply neon signs effect.

This is very Important step. Use above or your best settings to get outline effect. Then Invert it ( shortcut : Ctrl + i ), So you will get black lines on white background.

This will create a outline of image which we are going to use as reference or basic drawing. Then I tweaked it out as drawing by removing some black strokes and clean up.

Its just a drawing half done stage. Apply a multiply mode and you will be able to see photograph below it.

Step 03

now Select background copy layer and apply gradient map to it as we did for first layer. By now you should have following layers in your layers palette.

Step 04

Select both layers other than background and apply a mask to it one by one. I renamed those layers as shown in below graphic. Add new paper layer with paper texture below drawing  layer. Fill both masks with black color so no pixel will be visible from any layer except paper layer. You should have following layers in layers palette. now apply both layers as multiply mode and paper layer with normal mode.

Step 05

Then  start drawing randomly with large brush & white color in mask area of outlines layer.  So that it  will give you some random outline on paper. like below.

Step 06

Then select mask of drawing layer and start rendering lines in same way you do with pencil. Render light dark tones with variation in lines and pressure of pen. Also change brushes, sizes, hardness and opacity to get desired effect.  After rendering all you will get following result. You can see  start of this process in above image too. Some strokes on chicks, forehead.

See layers below, outline layer is  turned off after drawing is complete. You can  see white unmask area that shows drawing in layer. Which is drawn with help of wacom pen.

So here is final result.

Moving it further

Using combination of shift+ctrl + click on masks, select both masks with addition mode. Now select background layer. Then duplicate layer by pressing ctrl+j. It will copy masked or selected area from background image and will add it to new layer as a color sketch. Also you can add more strokes on separate layer with help or your skills to add more realistic sketching effect .

So here is color version. I hope you like this trick and use it somewhere.
Thanks for reading and visiting website.

Please let me know your thoughts on this article.