Applying the Sketch effect


You can use the Sketch effect to generate a black and white pencil outline of a photograph. You can then use the outline as a guide for applying color, which is a useful technique for starting a painting. For more information, see Choosing a painting workflow.

To store the settings for the effect, you can create a preset. This allows you to quickly apply the settings to another image.

Before (left) and after (right) applying the Sketch effect

To apply the Sketch effect

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1 To apply the effect to:
• The canvas — Click the Canvas in the Layers panel.
• A selection — Click a selection tool from the toolbox, and drag in the document window to select an area.
• A layer — Click a layer in the Layers panel.
2 Choose Effects Surface Control Sketch.
3 In the Sketch dialog box, adjust any of the following sliders:
• Sensitivity — determines sensitivity to detail. Low values detect only the main edges. High values detect the main edges as well as thin lines, such as the lines around a person’s eyes.
• Smoothing — determines how much noise is filtered out. Higher values result in wider, lighter, and blurrier lines.
• Grain — determines how much of the paper grain is revealed in the sketch marks. Move this slider to the right to show more of the paper grain.
• Threshold High and Threshold Low — removes noise after edge detection. Threshold High is used to flag light pixels which may be just noise in the image. Threshold Low is used to test surrounding pixels.

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You can also apply a preset sketch effect by choosing a preset from the Preset list box.

To save a sketch effect as a preset

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1 Choose Effects Surface Control Sketch.
2 In the Sketch dialog box, modify any of the settings.
3 Click the Add button .
4 In the Add Preset dialog box, type a name in the Preset Name box.

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You can delete a preset sketch effect by choosing it from the Preset list box and clicking the Delete button.

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