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The Best Picture to Realistic Drawing Converter in 2022

Learn about Picture to Realistic Drawing Converter software like Sketch Drawer to turn any photo into a realistic sketch.

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Sketch Drawer Screenshot.

A picture says a thousand words. But what can be even better than that? A pencil-drawn portrait or an amazing sketch of your favourite photo!
As a photographer, you can always click beautiful portraits. However, those are too common. Anyone can click selfies and apply filters and upload them to Instagram. A pencil sketch or a detailed drawing or colour painting feels much more intimate and personal.
By learning how to chose picture to drawing converter, you’ll be able to create unique gifts for your friends and family. And you can do all this on your phone or laptop! With multiple online programs and smartphone apps, any portrait can be turned into a pencil sketch. Apart from giving your photos a unique feel, this will also be helpful if you really want to learn sketching and drawing.
Let me tell you about a few simple picture to drawing converter tools you can use for converting images into drawings!

Boat image..
Convert boat Picture to Drawing..

How To Convert a Picture into a Realistic Drawing

There are many options if you’re looking for picture to drawing converters. With dozens of features, filters and effects, it gets a bit difficult to choose the one which suits your needs.
That’s why we’ll first discuss picture to drawing converter software, a converter and editor specially designed for changing images into sketches. Once you go through the steps in brief, you can check out a few more recommendations!
Covering even Photoshop and smartphone apps, this list will help you in choosing the perfect image converter and editor for your artistic needs.

Picture to Realistic Pencil Drawing Converter

Sketch Drawer is an intuitive picture to drawing converter that allows you to change any image into a pencil drawing. It even comes with presets for controlling the type of shading, colours, paintbrush effects and much more.
Picture to drawing converter software..

From a detailed sketch with shadows to stencils and minimal line drawings – you can use this one program for any type of drawing!
Because Sketch Drawer can automatically detect outlines and shadows, you won’t have to make any selections. The program will convert the whole image on its own and let you make the final adjustments, while showing you a preview of the final result in real time!

How to use Picture to Line Drawing Converter: Tutorial

Sketch Drawer has dozens of combinations of drawing styles and presets. We’ll learn how to start converting a picture into a realistic drawing using this program and some brief descriptions of the different options available.

Open the photo

When you install Picture to Realistic Drawing Converter and open it, you will see the option of Add File. Use this to open the image you want to edit, or simply drag and drop.

Picture to drawing converter: Open the photo..

Select the Sketch Style

Sketch Drawer gives you a toolbox on the right side. The first option you’ll see under it will be Style, from which you can select Realistic, Classic or Detailed.
Realistic: Realistic style will give you a good balance between subtle outlines and detailed shading. Using this style will retain the lights and shadows too, so that the final image will look like a professional drawing.
Detailed: Like the name suggests, the detailed style will put emphasis on the details, especially the parts which require shading. You’ll get almost no white areas, as even the bright areas will have some light pencil shading. This style is great for landscape photos, although portraits require a bit more minimal look.
Classic: The classic style is the best for creating simple line drawings and subtle portraits. This style will give you very simple shading and bold outlines, which is great for creating a drawing with a soft look.

Picture to drawing converter: Select Style of drawing..

Select the preset

Unlike the sketch style, the preset affects the finer details of the sketch, like the colour effects, thickness of pencil strokes, overall contrast etc.
Picture to drawing converter has a lot of different options, including felt tip pen, colour drawing, pop art, low contrast sketch, high contrast sketch, light black and white preset, simple paintbrush etc. A few of the most important presets are Simple, Light and Pen.
The Simple preset gives a paintbrush look, while the Pen preset is good for sharp, bold borders with medium level of shading. The Light preset is great for creating line drawings and stencils, because it results in less shading and more black and white areas!
A good tip is to keep an eye on the preview box that is shown over the original photo. That box will show you how the final sketch will look like with different settings!

Sketch Drawer: Select Preset of drawing..

Adjust the final settings

Apart from these options, Picture to Realistic Drawing Converter also gives you control over these settings – Contour, Hatching and Colourization. If you enable these options, you will be able to change the edge strength, amount of shading, stroke thickness and intensity of each of these features.
Contour refers to the outline of the converted photo, and increasing the edge strength or intensity here will give you bolder and more detailed borders.
Hatching settings affects the shading that is applied, and darker areas will have more of those zigzag lines. Since excessive cross-hatching looks unnatural, it will be better if you keep the stroke thickness and strength to a minimum. This will help you create shadings without making it seem like a computer did all the work!
Colourization adds colour to the sketch, and you can change a black and white image into a colourful one. You even get to choose which colours are used, and whether the image has a uniform colour pencil or a free-flowing paintbrush effect.

Picture to drawing converter: Set settings of the image..

Save file

Once all your settings are applied, you can click on Run and see Sketch Drawer convert the photo into a drawing. Then all you have to do is click on Save!

Sketch Drawer: Save the result..

How To Convert a Photo into a Realistic Drawing in Photoshop

If you already have Photoshop on your laptop, you can follow the following steps to turn an image into a pencil drawing!

How to Convert Picture to Drawing in Photoshop

Open the photo and duplicate layer

When you open the image in Photoshop, it’ll be loaded as the Background layer in the Layer panel of the toolbar.

Drag and drop this onto the folded paper icon, which is for creating a new layer. Once the original photo is duplicated, you’ll see 2 layers – Background and Background copy.

Photoshop: Open the photo..

Desaturate and duplicate again

Here, you have to remove all the colours from the duplicate layer and make it black and white. Go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

Now, this Background copy layer has to be copied again. Use the same drag and drop method to create a 3rd layer, which will be called Background copy 2.

Photoshop: Duplicate layer..

Photoshop: Go image to black and white..

Invert

We have to invert the 3rd layer, which will give a film negative look, turning dark areas light and light areas to black patches. You can do this by Image > Adjustments > Invert.

Photoshop: Invert the image..

Change blend mode to Colour dodge

When you open the Layers panel, on the top-left corner you will see the blend mode as Normal, which is by default. Change this to colour dodge.
You should now see the Background copy 2 photo become almost completely white!

Photoshop: Change to colour dodge..

Convert this 3rd layer into a smart object

Before we apply the main sketch effect using Gaussian blur, we have to change this layer into a smart object. This will keep the layer fully editable, and the changes won’t become permanent.
So, when we apply the Gaussian blur filter, we will still have the option of going back and adjusting the settings as we require.
To change the layer into a smart layer, go to the Layers Panel, and click on the menu icon in the top-right corner. From that menu, you can select Convert to Smart Object.

Photoshop: Convert into smart object..

Apply Gaussian filter

Gaussian blur filter will give the final pencil effect we are looking for! Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.
Once the filter is applied, your photo will start looking like a pencil drawing. You should also adjust the radius of the filter and see what look you like best! By increasing the radius, you’ll be able to create a drawing with thicker pencil strokes.

Photoshop: Convert into Gaussian blur..

Photoshop: Change Gaussian blur..

Some optional adjustments

If you feel that the sketch is looking too bright, you can change the blend mode to Multiply to darken the image. Also, to fine-tune the overall brightness of the image, you can change the opacity. Bringing it down will brighten up your sketch again.
You can also consider playing around a bit with the Levels adjustments! By changing the sharpness, brightness, contrast and using tools like dodge and burn, you can add your own customizations and modify the shading as you wish.
If you want to add colour to your sketch, you will have to duplicate the first layer, bring it to the top and change the blend mode to Colour.
This will mix the converted layer with the colours from the original image!
You can find more information on the colourization process in blog posts online or YouTube videos.

Photoshop: Add the colour..

Save image

You’re done! Once you are happy with the final effects, you can save your image. You can also try options like Torn Edges or colour filters and experiment!

Photoshop: picture to drawing converter..

Picture to Realistic Drawing Converter: Free Software

If you want to convert a photo into a pencil sketch quickly on the go, you can try out these online programs!

Pencil Sketch Online

Pencil Sketch Online..

Pencil Sketch is a very simple and free to use picture to drawing converter. All you have to do is upload your photo and decide the intensity of the pencil strokes from a range of 0 to 20.
The program will automatically detect the borders and give you a lightly shaded sketch! The only drawback is that you cannot add colours, and the shading is not very realistic.

Photofunia

Photofunia..

Photofunia is another free picture to drawing converter software where you can convert your photos for free. You will simply have to upload the image and click on Go. The program will give you a black and white photo with accurate pencil sketch within seconds!
It works really well for minimalist portraits, although it gives even white areas a light grey shade and may not be suitable if you want a line drawing with thick borders.

How to use Picture to Realistic Drawing Converter Tutorial:

Upload the photo

Choose the format of the final file and hit Send

Choose sketch effect

Convert Image will give you a detailed pencil sketch immediately.

Download your image

A small disadvantage of this program is that the sketches are created only using strokes which slant from right to left, with almost no shading or hatching. So, the results do not always look natural.

Best Picture to Realistic Drawing Converter Apps

With smartphone technology, you can download various free apps that turn your photos into pencil sketches! Let me tell about a few of the best ones.

Photo Sketch Maker

Photo Sketch Maker..

One of the highest rated apps in this category, the Photo Sketch Maker is an automatic converter and editor! After selecting the image you want to edit, you get to choose from options like pencil sketch, watercolour effect, hard pencil sketch and much more.

My Sketch Pencil

My Sketch Pencil..

My Sketch Pencil is a photo to drawing converter for iOS users. It offers up to 20 sketch effects like art brush, smudge, vintage look etc., and gives a very realistic result. The only catch is that you’ll have to pay about $2 for the full version!

Sketch Photo Maker

Sketch Photo Maker..

Another free app for android users, Sketch Photo Maker also converts any photo into a drawing automatically. It gives options like water painting, colour pencil effect, oil painting effect, cartoon styles and the classic black and white pencil effect. It even gives you the option to change the sketch into red, blue and green colour.

Conclusion

While photographs have their own special place, people do not pay them much attention nowadays. However, a pencil drawing or an oil painting is captivating and striking for all! It can also make for great birthday gifts and Christmas presents.
This is why SoftOrbits Picture to Realistic Drawing Converter is an amazing program. With just a few clicks, you can turn a normal photo into a realistic hand-drawn sketch! It gives you many presets like watercolour effect and felt tip drawing, and even lets you make fine adjustments like edge strength, hatching and stroke lengths.
Converting an image into a drawing is possible even on your smartphone. Check out apps like Photo Sketch Maker or free online tools like Photofunia, where all the magic happens without you having to make any manual selections!

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