I can’t draw (I can’t sing either but that’s another story). However, despite my lack of artistic prowess, I can make a cartoon outline from my children’s photographs. If you follow this tutorial, you’ll be able to make these drawings too!

On my last post we learned to use the pen tool to cut photographs from a background. On today’s post I’ll walk you through another tutorial with the pen tool — using it to make a cartoon outline of your baby or child.

  1. Open Photoshop and open the photograph you wish to work with.
  2. Make a duplicate copy of the background layer (Layer–>Duplicate Layer)
  3. Open a new layer (Layer–>New–>Layer). Use the paint bucket tool to fill this layer white (Set the foreground color to white, highlight the layer, click on the paint bucket, click over the photograph).
  4. Open another new layer, rename it cartoon line drawing.
  5. Hide the white layer by clicking on the eye in the layers tool box (note if your layers are not visible open them by going to Window–> Layers)

    Layers tool box with white layer hidden

    (Layers tool box with white layer hidden)

  6. With the cartoon line drawing layer highlighted use the zoom tool (the magnifying glass in the tool bar on the right side of your screen) to magnify your photograph.
  7. Open the pen tool, make sure the new work path button is highlighted and place anchor points along the line you wish to draw (go to this tutorial for pen tool basics). Keep in mind it is best to work in smaller lines. Think like an artist drawing individual lines of a picture and do not try to outline the entire photo at once.
  8. Click on the paint brush tool in the tool bar on the right side of your screen. Choose your brush size from upper right hand corner of the screen. Here you will have some artistic license. Most cartoon line drawings have larger diameter ink both on the outer portion of the drawing and on any object that is close in (as opposed to far away). On my outline I used brush sizes from 3 pixels to 9 pixels depending upon the section I was working on. I used hard brushes from the tool preset but you can experiment with different brushes to get the look you want.

    Paint Brush Selection Tool

    Paint Brush Selection Tool

  9. Open the brush palette (Window–>Brushes). Click on shape dynamics and choose a control (the two I used in this drawing were pen pressure and fade). The pen pressure control with have a slight taper on the beginning and ending portion of the stroke. The fade pressure control with have a tapered line along the end of the stroke. If you choose the fade control you will also need to set the steps for size fade box (the number of steps will depend on how long your stroke line is - play around to get the effect you want)

    Brushes Palette

    Brushes Palette

  10. Go to the paths palette (Window –> Paths). Drag your work path to the stroke path with brush button (the circle at the bottom of the work path palette).
  11. Hit the delete button once to eliminate your work path. Make the white layer visible to clearly see your line.
  12. For thicker areas, such as the eyelashes or eyebrows use the pen tool to make anchor points around the entire area connecting the beginning and ending points. Then use the fill path with foreground color tool (the shaded circle at the bottom of the paths palette) to fill the region. First make sure your foreground color is set to black.
  13. The eraser tool may be used to eliminate any lines or sections of line you do not want.
  14. Repeat steps 7-12 to complete your drawing.

Once you’ve mastered line drawing there is no limit to what you can do. Use this technique to make coloring pages, color your photo in photoshop or learn to make Lichtenstein inspired portraits of your kids. Enjoy!

Shalet Abraham is a mother, veterinarian, blogger and avid amateur photographer. She blogs at peculiarmomma.blogspot.com.

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