Turning Photos into Drawings?

Edrof · 25 Apr 2020 at 20:02

Hello all,

I'm publishing a non-fiction book later this year (hopefully) and I need to illustrate it. It's about swords and so I'd like diagrammatic line 'drawings' of each one. What would be the easiest way of going about this?

This is the kind of subject I'll be dealing with:

This is the sort of result I'd like:

I am fairly competent in Gimp and I have tried some blueprint tutorials but none are quite right and they don't work well for the photos that aren't as clean. What would you guys do? All suggestions are happily accepted as I figure that I have about 150 of these to do...eek!

Matt

UberTiger · 25 Apr 2020 at 20:13

For that many images, get someone proficient with Adobe Illustrator from Fiverr to do them.

I got someone from there to vector trace of an old sketch and it came out incredible for the price.

Mcnumpty2323 · 25 Apr 2020 at 20:42

There's a couple members on here proficient at that stuff
Though as usual I can't remember names
Hopefully they will see your post
And help you

Edrof · 26 Apr 2020 at 09:58

Thanks for the suggestions and I hadn't thought of those. I'd love to learn this myself so that's the first course of action to try - I just don't have the in-depth knowledge of GIMP to figure it out myself and I need someone to point me in the right direction.

Mcnumpty2323 · 26 Apr 2020 at 12:29

Given my memory might be wrong person lol
But think @Coojeekitten might have some graphics talent
If it's wrong person sorry guys.

Coojeekitten · 26 Apr 2020 at 12:50

Mcnumpty2323 said:
Given my memory might be wrong person lol
But think @Coojeekitten might have some graphics talent
If it's wrong person sorry guys.

Thanks McNumpty, but I'm a bit more photography & video editing.

With a correctly taken photo, good lighting, contrast & angle, here are a couple options:

Tweak a photo into a line drawing in Photoshop:
https://clippingpathindia.com/blogs/tips/how-turn-photo-into-pencil-sketch-with-photoshop

Auto turn your photo into a sketch:
https://akvis.com/en/sketch/index.php

One I made with Akvis a few years back, it's not a line drawing, but you get the idea:

Mcnumpty2323 · 26 Apr 2020 at 12:53

Coojeekitten said:
Thanks McNumpty, but I'm a bit more photography & video editing.

With a correctly taken photo, good lighting, contrast & angle, here are a couple options:

Tweak a photo into a line drawing in Photoshop:
https://clippingpathindia.com/blogs/tips/how-turn-photo-into-pencil-sketch-with-photoshop

Auto turn your photo into a sketch:
https://akvis.com/en/sketch/index.php

One I made with Akvis a few years back, it's not a line drawing, but you get the idea:

I did say my memory was sketchy

I was kind of almost nearly right lol

Edrof · 28 Apr 2020 at 20:02

Thanks Coojee

shakilpsuk · 2025-01-14T05:51:26+0000

Mcnumpty2323 said:
I did say my memory was sketchy
I was kind of almost nearly right lol

Thanks for sharing what you think and the example you made with Akvis! It’s cool how people have different ways of turning photos into sketches. Since I've also messed around with photo editing, I’ve tackled similar projects. While tools like Akvis are super quick and do a lot of the work for you, I usually find that making some manual tweaks in Photoshop gives me way more control and lets me nail down those little details or specific styles I’m going for.