Photo Effects: Turn A Photo To A Sketch
Learn Photoshop with Photo Effects Tutorials at Photoshop Essentials.com
As I stated on the previous page, these next few steps in the tutorial are completely optional, but if you find your sketch is a bit on the light side, here's an easy way to make it darker and give it more contrast. We could use Levels or Curves here to darken it, but that's just adding complexity to an otherwise very simple effect. No need for that.
Step 7 (Optional): Merge All Layers Into A Single Layer
With the top layer still selected, use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E (Win) / Shift+Command+Option+E (Mac) to quickly merge all of your layers in the Layers palette onto a new layer at the top of the stack:
Step 8 (Optional): Change The Blend Mode Of The Merged Layer To 'Multiply'
With the new merged layer selected in the Layers palette, go back up to the blend mode options and this time, change the blend mode from "Normal" to "Multiply":
The Multiply blend mode makes everything darker, and as soon as you select Multiply for the merged layer, your sketch effect will become darker, giving it better contrast.
Step 9 (Optional): Fine-Tune The Darkening Amount By Lowering The Opacity
If you think your sketch effect is now too dark,you can easily adjust the amount of darkening to your liking by lowering the opacity value of the merged layer. Simply go up to the Opacity value in the top right corner of the Layers palette, move your mouse directly over the word "Opacity", which turns your mouse icon into Photoshop's "scrubby sliders", and then click and drag your mouse to the left to lower the opacity value. I'm going to lower mine here to a value of 60%:
And here's my final result:
And you're done!
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