Hi! I've been using Pshop for years, but haven't gotten much into using the filters. Now I have a need to convert some full-color, fully tonal work into b&w line art for inexpensive print publication. I've worked before with simply making my images greyscale, but I didn't like what the printer did with them, and this time I want to be a little more creative. I've tried the sketch/graphic pen filter, but I'm not entirely pleased with the results. What would be ideal, I think, would be a filter that approximates the effect when you take a tonal image and save it as a gif with only 2 colors selected. I've tried to make one of these into a line art image with some success (see attachment) but I think a filter would provide a lot more control and quality. Any leads on a good plug-in or something?

Attached Link: www.andromeda.com/

Andromeda has some nice ones I use for this. Click the 'screens' and 'cutline' filter, but they are from $74 to $109.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=534055

Ooh! That's a plug-in I'd like to have. 'Twould make my life easier. In the meantime, joezabel, there are also ways you can achieve acceptable results using the regular Photoshop filters -- that is, if you're in a rush and can't get the filter right away. The thing is, you have to do it in parts and pieces. The attached link is one of my older images converted to line art using just the standard Photoshop filters in 6.0. The original image can be found here: http://art.aprilgem.com/poser/poser14.html Anyway, I did it in parts and pieces -- I had several copies of the image on separate layers. I posterized some of the layers so that the color gradients were less smooth and broken up into blocks, and THEN I used the sketch/graphic pen filter on them. I used different settings and the multiplied the layers so they all added up. I can't quite remember the exact steps I made, but it's always a trial and error with each image anyway -- you get different results with different color schemes, and sometimes the technique works well while other times it doesn't. That's in if you don't have the Andromeda filter and you're in a bind, though.

Thanks! I'm really surprised that Photoshop doesn't offer more choices for this. After all, it's something you really need for printing pictures in a number of formats

Is that picture using a standard PS filter?

"Is that picture using a standard PS filter?" Which picture do you mean? If you mean the one I linked to, yes, it is, in passes. There was a point in my life where I took pride in using nothing but Photoshop's standard filters to achieve effects (mostly because I didn't have any plug-ins). The graphic pen filter was used several times, sometimes with the option of slanting right and other times with the option of slanting left. I think I also used the find outlines filter and desaturated the result. This is all after using the posterize feature. These passes were done to different copies of the image on separate layers, and the layers were set to multiply. After everything I did, I made sure to flatten the image, convert everything to grayscale, then to bitmap mode. Worked like a charm.

Very nice.

I know that Poser has the Sketch Designer modual. Can't you bring in a photo as a background and use it?

Attached Link: http://www.redfieldplugins.com/

Here is one I ran across...Sketch Master.

Attached Link: http://www.swsoftware.com

This one uses artist effects like brushes to create the final output. They also have a trial version available for try out.

try like an orangy blue...maybe light blue and darker orange