Hi, I’m trying to create a hand-drawn look from a photograph, I searched google and there’s some free stuff out there, but it either wants to work with paths (trace the photo) or it’s working with unfamiliar file formats.
I’m not looking to do alot of work to achieve the desired effect, anybody have any promising software suggestions that can handle this procedure somewhat like a photoshop filter?
VectorMagic is the best I’ve ever seen. It’s farking amazing. (But upon edit, I also notice that it’s the first google hit so you probably saw it already… was there something you didn’t like about it?)
ETA: But if all you want a hand-drawn effect and you don’t care about actual vectorization, I think there ARE actual Photoshop filters that can do it much better.
Well, I di-d try vector magic, it seemed to be better with simple clean subjects, but I’m trying to get the details of a face in a photograph. I’m ok with the result being black and white, after all I’m just going for the outline anyway- so not even vector lines really matters; a photoshop filter could work also any idea about those?
Potrace is pretty good (B&W only), but a little arcane to use. What effect do you want? If you want an outline, I’d try and play with the levels and contrast in PS until there’s a clear outline, and then vectorize that.
For VectorMagic, did you make sure to use it on Photo mode? Or if you deliberately want a sketch-like appearance, you could edit the image in Photoshop first, reducing it to grayscale and then upping the contrast a bit, which will get rid of some of the big swaths of facial texture and leave you with cleaner edges to vectorize.
As for a PS filter, it’s been a loooooong time but I think something like Snap Art might fit the bill. There’s a demo version available, but I’m not sure what the restrictions (if any) are.
ETA: Photoshop might have some built-in filters that do the same thing, even. I don’t have a copy handy to check though.