I can draw simple things, but I’m not really an artist, so, wanting to use “sketches” instead of photos for a project, I went looking for software that could transform photos into sketches.
I’ve used free online software in the past for this, but none seemed very versatile. My photo-editing software, Paint Shop Pro, can create sketches, but it’s hit and miss getting good results and it’s not very intuitive for tweaking on the image.
I decided to try commercial software and the first one I came across seems to be perfect for what I want to do.
According to the product page for AKVIS Sketch, it “converts photos into pencil sketches and watercolor paintings. Now you do not need to handle a pencil to feel like an artist. All you need to create your original work of art is good taste and AKVIS Sketch.”
AKVIS has a number of artistic photo manipulation software tools. A 10 day fully functional trial period is available for each.
My 10 day trial of Sketch has expired. I liked it well enough that I’ll be purchasing the AKVIS Sketch software. I would like to include some of the other software, but that’ll have to wait. In the meantime, here’s some of the images I converted during the trial period.
One of the things that I noticed is that increasing the color saturation – more color – of the photo resulted in better “sketches.”
After several hours of working with the program, I had saved 4 presets. I processed each photo with each preset and saved the result, with little additional adjustment. Later, I selected my final version from those that had been saved and deleted the rest.
image by FairbanksMike on Flickr under provisions of a Creative Commons License
image by Bill Debevc on Flickr under provisions of a Creative Commons License.
image by cloudchaser32000 on Flickr under provisions of a Creative Commons License
image by craigfinlay on Flickr under provisions of a Creative Commons License
image by Nicholas A. Tonelli on Flickr under provisions of a Creative Commons License
image by Don Graham on Flickr under provisions of a Creative Commons License
