I’ve had a lot of requests for a tutorial on how I created this image of a French Castle that looks like it’s an illustration.

Chateau de Chinon as a photo illustration by Leslie Nicole

A Tutorial In Four Parts

While this technique is pretty simple, I wanted to cover a lot of the different options involved which would make for a very long, complicated tutorial. (Which is why I’ve been procrastinating on it!) I’ve decided to break it down into manageable sections, so I’ll be doing this tutorial in four parts.

  1. The Overview: (This post) An introduction, overview and a road map for the tutorial break down.
  2. Preparing the Color Image: In the next post, I’ll cover ways you can prepare your color image such as using filters.
  3. Creating a Line Illustration Effect: In this post, I’ll cover several different ways to create a black and white line drawing of your color image.
  4. Putting it all together: In the final post, I’ll show you the details of how it all works together, including using watercolor brushes in the layer mask.

An Overview

This technique is very popular in digital scrapbooking.

The Elements

The Color Photograph

Travel images seem to be well suited for this process. This is a photograph I took of the Château de Chinon in France (my husband’s birth place!) I’ll cover the processing information in the next post.

Chateau de Chinon by Leslie Nicole

The Line Illustration

From the color image, we create a line drawing effect. I’ll show you the various ways to create this effect in Part III.

Line Drawing Effect Chateau de Chinon

A Texture Background

The background would be either the scrapbook page or in my case, a texture. A background that is plain and light is probably the best bet. This texture is Serene, lightened and desaturated from the French Kiss Les Textures 3 Collection

French Kiss Collections Texture Background

 The Layers

Here’s a simplified version of my Layer Panel in Photoshop. (I’ve taken out minor tweaks specific to my image to show the essence of the technique.)

From the Top Layer Down:

  1. The original color image is set to a Normal Blend Mode at 80% Opacity. I used Photoshop watercolor brushes (spot and spatter) on a layer panel filled with black to reveal some of the color photo.
  2. The line drawing version is set to multiply at 100% opacity. Again, I used Photoshop watercolor brushes on the layer mask. In this layer mask, I extended how much of the layer is revealed beyond how much the color is revealed so you get the look that the color is added onto the drawing.
  3. The texture background.

Photoshop Layer Panel showing illustration technique

That’s a quick overview of the steps we’ll be covering in the tutorial.

  1. Part 1: An overview of what will be covered. (This post)
  2. Part 2: Preparing the Color Photograph.
  3. Part 3: Creating the Black and White Line Illustration.
  4. part 4: Putting it all together and using the watercolor brushes.

Resources

You can find Photoshop Watercolor Brushes and Textures on French Kiss Collections.

Leslie Nicole
Leslie Nicole

American Photographer and Designer living in France with my French husband, 2 Weimaraners and Cat Rescues. Camera, Mac, studio, garden.