How to Turn Any Image Into an Illustration in Photoshop

Photoshop is an amazing tool that can help you with more than just retouching photographs; it can be used to create illustrations as well! In today's episode, we show you how to turn a photo into what looks like a hand-drawn illustration.

Creating a custom brush

The goal for this episode is to create a drawing that looks like chalk on a chalkboard. The first and essential step in this process is to create a custom "chalk brush." We do this by going into the brush window and altering the characteristics of the brush. We increase the size, flow, opacity and angle jitter, as well as change the tip shape and lessen the spacing. There are many little details in this brush that help create a chalky effect.

Using Levels and Channels to create a selection

There are many ways to create a selection, and for this particular image we use the lights and darks in our image to do so. We bring our dark and white points up with Levels to create a graphic version of the image. A selection is then created from a copy of a Channel layer. This only selects the light parts and not the darks, so we want to inverse the selection. We are left with a lovely selection of the darks from our image.

Turning the selection into a Pen Path

Did you know you can turn any selection into a Pen Path?

All we have to do is click on the paths tab, and then click on the "Make Work Path from Selection" button. This simulates what would happen if we were to actually take a pen and follow the lines of the selection. After our path is created, we can stroke the path with our custom brush! This step is what really turns what was once a regular image into a chalk drawing.

We can always go back into the drawing with our chalk brush to add some finishing touches.

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Closed Caption:

today I'm going to show you how to turn
any image into an illustration in
Photoshop
hey guys work on the floor in my name is
aaron nace and you can find me on learn
. com where we make learning photoshop &
photography fun
I'm excited about today's episode
because it's going to be really
difficult and I typical let's get to do
really difficult things here are
flirting so this is really cool and if
you guys are into this sort of thing
this might be an episode that you want
to watch a couple of times the reason is
we're going to go into channels we're
going to be going into selections we're
going to create a custom brush and we're
going to do all that to create a really
cool basically we're going to turn a
photo into an illustration and make that
look like it's chalk on a chalkboard so
we're actually doing something super
super complex today so for those of you
guys really love to go get in there and
learn all the complexities and the
really cool tools to photoshop a stalker
this episode is going to be perfect for
you we're going to go ahead and jump
into our images we've got a ton to do so
here is our image from fotolia.com and i
was looking at this and I was like man
this would be an awesome chance to make
it look like we actually draw with with
chalk on the backboard like if you had
taken a picture like this i'm sure you
guys have seen those images on the
Internet where it's like someone coming
and drawn something with chalk or a
marker whatever it is and that's
basically the gonna be the goal here so
we're going to start off by making a
brush that looks going to look like
chalk
so to do so let's go ahead and create a
new layer and I'm just got my brush tool
right here just told totally normal
settings as now and this is what it
looks like right
just a totally normal or brush let's
zoom in that looks nothing like chalk
right
this is just a regular brush so let's go
ahead and make this look like chalk
first thing we're going to do is I'm
gonna hit
d and then X to get our default colors
and we're going to choose white is our
default color
there we go and i'm going to go down
from window down here to brush so my
goal is to make this look like it's
chalk as I'm painting around so i got a
kind of think like what would charge
look like well it's kind of varied right
like chocolate it is bigger in some
areas and smaller in some areas and
where the
like catches the you know chalkboard and
stuff like that there's a lot of like
kind of scattering going on so we're
gonna kind of take that into account
i'm going to click here on our shape
dynamics and I'm going to turn my size
jitter up
so what this is going to do is it's
going to make some of these like larger
and some of them smaller so you can see
from it was totally normal just a second
ago and now this is what it looks like
all right i'm gonna hit command a and
then delete to just delete everything
that's on the layer so every this is
what I do when I'm trying to make a
brush
ok now my minimum diameter I'm going to
turn this up as well
okay that's looking really cool now i
also want this to kind of i want to add
a bunch of variability in here like
randomness because i don't want this to
look like it's just done in photoshop so
i'm going to go back here where it says
brush tip shape and i'm going to
actually change the roundness of it
instead of being at a hundred percent
we're going to do something like fifty
percent so it's going to look like this
which you know if you go side to side up
and down you're going to see there's a
difference there
but this is not also like the roundness
we just change let's go back to shape
dynamics and now i'm going to turn on my
angle jitter and you can see our little
preview here is I bring up our angle
jitter what it's going to do is it's
going to just make each one of these a
different angle as I paint around here
we go
so each one of these is going to be a
different angle there and that wouldn't
have done anything if I would have left
the roundness at a hundred percent
because it would have been round right
like you turn a circle sideways it's
still a circle
all right let's bring our spacing down
there we go so these are going to be
really close space together
that's looking really cool so we can see
it's it's looking more and more like
chalk right all right next I'm going to
see i'm going to try to turn on
scattering as well and see what that
does
so just a little bit of scattering there
we go we'll create a brush it's a little
bit smaller
all right there we go that looks pretty
cool
now we're going to click on our transfer
and I'm going to bring my opacity jitter
all the way up as well and see what that
looks like so we want something again
that's just going to look like chalk
we're going to bring our spacing down a
little bit more all right there we go
and scattering we're going to bring our
scattering down
just a little bit and we're going to
bring our minimum diameter up here a
little bit as well
so every time i'm making it helps to
brush like this it's totally
let's bring our brushed roundness a
little bit up it's just totally like a
guessing game
like I'm I'm pretty much just plugging
in these values and trying to figure out
okay when it's actually going to look
good when is this going to look like the
brush that I'm you know that i actually
wanted to look like
all right there we go let's turn that
off
low jitter I'm going to turn this on as
well alright cool
and there we go that's starting to look
like
yeah if I paint with that you can see
from what I started with to this this
looks a lot more like chalk so that's
exactly what I want
alright floater let me just see i'm
going to turn that back down to zero
return this pen pressure so if i don't
press hard it's going to just be light
so like if you'd be like a light chalk
stroke and the harder i press is going
to be a little bit darker
I think that makes a little bit more
believable ok so this is our chalk brush
now you can write around and it looks
like chalk when you're painting which is
really really cool
so this is very very very first part of
our tutorial i guess that today's
episode super complex
so after i created my chalk brush what
I'm going to do is just click right here
and say new brush preset we're going to
go ahead and save that as chalk
there we go so if i want to just write
with chalk
that's all i have to do is just right
around with my truck brush which is
really cool
ok and you can make it larger and
smaller and stuff like that like any
other brush
okay so there we go that looks like a
pretty good size so we're just going to
keep that size
I'm it's a size of 10 you can see right
there
alright so that's the first thing we're
going to do and we actually are going to
write with our question just a little
bit but before we do that i'm going to
show you something else that we're going
to basically turn an image into an
illustration and then trace that
illustration with this truck brush
alright so the image we're going to use
is this image of these dumbbells here
and basically I want to figure out how
do we make these into an illustration
now this is where things get a little
bit more complex
let's go ahead and hit command T in
we're going to scale this down every go
because I wanted this is going to wind
up being right about there
ok so figuring out how we get this to
look like an illustration well we need
to start off by figuring out a good way
to make this into a selection and i'm
going to use the lights and the darks to
turn this into a selection so to get
this into a selection there is a great
method using channels so we're going to
click right over here on channels and a
red green and blue in this case because
this is black and white what we're
actually gonna be editing the it doesn't
matter in this case which general use
but you can see the girl in the
background
it changes based on the colors of her
skin
so we're just going to duplicate the red
channel here because we're going to turn
this area into an illustration so
duplicate our red channel
ok and then i'm going to hit command l
to bring up our levels so we've got a
red channel and then I've duplicated it
we're bringing up levels I'm going to
bring my black . up and my white . as
well
all right there we go that looks super
cool
so basically we want this to be a lot
more graphic right we want this to look
a lot more like a graphic we need to
simplify it a lot because I'm gonna have
to turn this into a selection and then
that selection is going to need to be it
turned into a path and that path is
going to need to be stroked with a brush
so I needed as simple as possible
that's why I'm bringing my daughter . up
and my white . as well
all right there we go cool
that looks pretty good and that's a
really nice simple version of what we
just had their so we're going to hit OK
alright so now that we have our now that
we have our super super super simple
selection or is super simple version of
these dumbbells
we're going to do is actually turn that
into a selection and when you're using
channels it's super easy all you have to
do is hold down ctrl or command and
click on the thumbnail of the layer so
we're going to click on it click there
and you're going to see everything is
turned into a selection
now when you turn its channel into a
selection it selects out the light parts
and it doesn't select out the dark parts
ok so let's go back to our layers and
i'll show you guys what that looks like
if i were to make this layer invisible
let's just say created a new layer my
selection our basic
we able to draw now in the light parts
right like I'm not able to draw wherever
it was dark before because that's what
our selection looks like
so what I actually want to do is inverse
my selection because i actually want to
draw where the dark parts are because I
i needed to look like those choc there
so we're going to go to select and then
down here to inverse
ok now if I paint with my brush
it's still the chalk brush which is cool
you can see I'm only able to paint their
in my where my actual dumbbells are all
bells whatever these are all right there
we go
so that's a really good start but this
still isn't what we want right that
doesn't look like it's a illustration
that just looks like is made a selection
then
kinda true it in alright so let's go
ahead and undo that and I don't need
anything else to be selected so I'm just
going to grab my marquee selection tool
and I'm going to hold down the alt or
the option key and just make large
selections here that's going to - out
all these areas from the selection
because we we really only need just this
area to be a selection
all right there we go cool
so what we have now is basically just
this is turned into a slut tonight if I
hit cue for the quick mask you can see
we have now a selection that looks
exactly like this
so every step we have taken up until
this point has basically been trying to
make a selection that looks like this
and that's exactly what we have so we
started out with a regular image we
simplified it using the channels and
levels
remember we brought up the black . and
the white . so now we have like it
almost looks like a stamp then we turn
that into a selection with our channels
ok that we simplify this election just
with a regular marquee tool and now
we're ready to do something else with
that selection we want to turn that
selection into a pen path which you can
do for any selection by the way you
don't have to go through all this stuff
if you have a totally regular selection
you can turn any selection into a pen
path and i'm going to show you how to do
that
ok so let's take you again so we can see
what our selection looks like
ok so to turn this into a pen path what
we're going to do is I'm going to click
on my paths button and we're going to
click right down here you're going to
see if I take my hand off our cursor
make work path from selection so any
selection you have
you can make a path from that something
click there and it's gonna take a little
while and kind of thing but there we go
that's our work path that it made from
the selection really cool
so now we have this work path it's
basically just a a path right that
that's the idea of it so it's simulating
what we would do if we actually were to
draw its you know created a natural path
for us
so what we're going to do is I've got
this path now i'm gonna go back to my
layers and i'm going to create a new
layer and now back here my paths i'm
going to right click and i'm going to go
to stroke path
ok so stroke path now this is basically
going to choose the path that we already
created which is now looking like the
dumbbells
we're going to stroke this with the
brush that we just made
ok so we're going to stroke stroke this
with the brush which is our chalkboard
brush and we have the option to simulate
pressure we can turn this offer on i'm
going to try to see what it looks like
when we turn this on
okay so we're gonna hit okay just make
sure you're on a new layer when you do
this
alright so let's hit OK and see what it
does all right there we go
and that's basically what we've got from
our stroke of the past so we've taken
basically what was just a regular image
and turned it into these dumbbells
so I'm going to do this completely over
again because I i know this was a lot
and plus this is not as accurate as I
actually wanted to be I wanted to be a
little bit better than that
alright so let's delete this I'll do it
faster this time and you guys can see it
really doesn't take a ton to get this
from aid from a regular image to an
illustration
ok so here we are one more time we've
got a regular image I'm going to go to
my channels
ok we're going to duplicate our blue
channel or red channel in this case it
doesn't matter i'm going to bring up my
white . and we're going to bring up our
black .
all right there we go and something like
that
so we're going to hit okay now I'm gonna
hold command or ctrl and click on my
channels
ok now here basically i need it in verse
my selection so we'll select and go down
to inverse so now i'm selecting out my
blacks
let's create a new layer and I'm going
to use my marquee tool
alt or option
so I want to take away the selection
from the rest of my image right because
it's selected you know her face and
everything like that and if I don't take
away this all this area
it's going to try to turn that into a
pen path to which is going to get super
super tricky
ok now i can make this invisible I've
got my path meat selection here i'm
going to go back to my path and then
we're just going to do this again
there we go so we've got a new path
there and it's basically mimicking what
we had on our old path
ok so we're going to right click there
i'm going to go to make selection
sorry now make selection we're going to
go to stroke path and then we're going
to use our brush
there we go very very cool
so you can see it did an awesome job
getting us most of the way there and it
does look like an illustration but it's
not perfect which I actually appreciate
that it's not perfect in this case
because that I want to go back and add
my own like basically dropped
brushstrokes using my walking tablet to
make it look like it is a drawing and
that it's not something that photoshop
just kind of like spit out
so what we're going to do is create a
new layer and then with using the same
brush I'm basically just going to go in
here and draw my own
well if you need to rotate your canvas
you can do so by hitting the our tool by
the way that's sometimes will help you
like actually draw some things
so this I'm basically just using my
brush tool and now i'm kind of going in
here and basically drawing my own little
bits of you know
dumbbell that would exist around around
this guy and I find that doing this sort
of stuff just really does help it look
more like a drawing and let's just like
something former shop just actually
stuck out
all right there we go and we're using
the same brush so everything should look
totally normal and natural
there we go so just kind of completing
it in but those steps that we did before
this basically did most of our work for
us which is really cool
all right let's shift click the two of
those and hit command G now we're going
to create a new layer and i'm just going
to write with the same brush
all right we're going to say work
hard work hard I just play hard would
make sense as well
all right let's sit command T on this
group here we're going to just sighs it
down just a little bit
there we go we've got our texts but you
know what i am going to make a play hard
all right we're going to use our brush
tool and I'm going to hit i'm going to
write play hard as well
cool so we'll basically move that down
there and then work hard is going to go
I don't know who will just make this
little bit smaller work hard and then
play hard
there we go I don't know
he could barely read that can't you play
hard work hard can go down there
all right this is an amazing piece of
art
i'm pretty sure it's going to be going
in a museum relatively soon
all right here we go let's go ahead and
scale that up just a little bit more so
it actually fits their very very cool
alright so now that we have all those
play hard we've got our work or hard
we've got this layer here
there everything is together I want to
do just a couple more things to make it
actually looks like it's chalk
so we're going to zoom in here i'm going
to shift click all those layers and hit
command G to group them
so we've got a group now that's all
these layers there we go
I'm going to duplicate the script by
hitting command J and I'm going to hit
command
e which is going to merge all of them
together
so now instead of a group with a bunch
of layers I've just got one layer that's
everything we've done up until now
ok so to make this look a little bit
more believable
I'm going to give it a little bit of a
blur so it kind of blends into the
chalkboard makes it look like it's
actually in there so we're going to go
to filter down here to blur and two
gaussian blur
just give it like a 1 pixel blur all
right
and next I'm going to double click here
and I'm gonna go down to an outer glow
there we go and I'm going to bring my
size up a little bit on this all right
and our past way down and it's just
gonna get and give it a little bit of a
bleed-out making it look like
where to hit okay so I'm going to turn
this off and on so you can see it's just
gonna make it look like it's a little
bit more in the actual chalkboard like
you know
there we go because chalk does have a
little bit of a bleed to it and you
could get actually move that or blurred
or something like that
let's put a layer mask on there as well
and then you know what I'm gonna
actually i'm going to layer mask this
using the same brush that we had earlier
than the actual chalk brush but if I
want to add some like really cool space
in there
all i have to do is I'm going to open my
brush again and I'm going to go to my
brush tip shape and i'm going to bring
up spacing so now it's like little
little dots basically right let's bring
up our spacing and are scattering so now
we have little dots and that's basically
just going to make it look like
yeah there we go it's going to make it
look like these areas like the chalk
just didn't happen to hit
so again adding a little bit more
randomness to our chalk and that's just
going to help it make the leap
look more believable so there's a before
and the after with this
all right now I tried to do something
super complex and take almost no time
with it but we can see there it looks
really cool like it does look like a
hand drawing even though I didn't have
to trawl most of that and we've got
still some text in here and it looks
like chalk so I think we did an awesome
job getting this done and if you guys
follow along with this just
congratulations because it's not an easy
thing that we did here
let's take a look at our before and
here's our after thanks so much for
watching this episode guys I hope you
enjoyed it
I really wanted to show you guys some
cool things you can do with custom
brushes as well as channels and
selections and paths and stroke in those
paths with the custom brushes that we
created in the beginning of the episode
if you like what we're doing here
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