Embedded Developer

Another aide memoir, how to convert a photo into a pencil sketch using Affinity Photo. I don’t do this often and so I always forget the steps.

In the following I will refer to the Mac keystrokes which use the CMD key, on the PC use the CTRL key.

Starting Point

This example will use a photo of a working cocker spaniel:

Original Image

The image has a reasonable amount of detail and will be a challenge.

Essential Steps

Form me, the first step when working with any photograph it to create a duplicate of the original and make sure that the original is locked.

Shortcut: CMD+J

Duplicate Layer

Next step, invert the image on the duplicate layer.

Shortcut: CMD+I

Invert duplicate layer

Next up, change the blend mode of the duplicate layer to colour dodge.

Colour Dodge

The image should now turn white. Now add a Gaussian blur to the duplicate layer.

Gaussian Blur

Use the slider to change the radius until you are happy with the effect.

Change Blur Radius

At this point the image still has some colour in it. Adding a HSL adjustment and reducing the saturation to 0% will remove the colour.

Add HSL Adjustment

Set saturation to 0%

The final step is to add a Levels Adjustment:

Adjust Levels

and adjust the black level:

Change the Black Level

Here is a zoomed in section of the final image:

Image post levels adjustment

Optional Additional Adjustments

There are some additional adjustments that can be made to give the image the appearance of an actual pencil drawing:

• Add a paper like canvas to the image
• Use a mask layer to paint out some of the background around the edges giving a blurred edge
• If the edge of the image is predominantly white then maybe use the inpainting tool to remove any slightly grey areas in the background

Conclusion

Here is the full image with just the essential adjustments:

Final Image