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Photo to Cartoon Line Art Conversion

Introduction:

In this tutorial, we'll learn to take a photograph and convert it into a cartoon line drawing that you can color. This is a great tutorial for creating your own unique artwork and the result is so different from the original photograph, you will most likely be able to call the work your own.

Step-By-Step:

1. Open the photograph in Photoshop.

2. Goto Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.
3. Goto Filter > Artistic > Poster Edges. Adjust the sliders to get a nice line effect around the objects and people in the photograph.

4. Create a duplicate layer of the Photograph.
5. Goto Image > Adjustments > Invert.
6. Change the Blending Mode for the duplicate layer to "Color Dodge".

7. Goto Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur...
8. Adjust the Radius to get a nice line drawing effect.

9. Click OK and you should now have a line drawing of the photograph.
10. Click CTRL + E to merge the two layers into one. Name the layer "Line Art".

11. Select the Eraser tool and erase the background and any spots that you do not want to be on the completed cartoon image.

12. When you are done, you should now have a cleaner image.

13. Select the Magic Wand Tool and select the grey area inside the person or object. Make sure that "Continuous" option is selected for the Magic Wand Tool so that you select all grey areas of the image.
14. Click the Delete key to remove all of the grey area of the line art image.

15. Create a new layer and call it "Color". Move this layer right underneath the "Line Art" layer.
16. Select the Brush Tool and a color of your choice and begin painting color to the cartoon. Since your Color layer is below the Line Art layer, you will have more freedom of error when coloring.

17. Choose darker shades of color to add some shadows.

18. When you are done, you should now have your Cartoon Image that was converted from a Photograph.