How to Create a Quick and Dirty Sketch From a Photograph With a Photoshop Action

Welcome to our Photoshop in 60 Seconds series, in which you can learn a Photoshop skill, feature, or technique in just a minute!

Photoshop in 60 Seconds: Dirty Sketch Effect

Creating a sketch of any model or object can be quite time consuming. But you can bypass all the hassle by using photograph! Let a Photoshop Action to do the work for you. Browse the amazing selection of Sketch Photoshop Actions on GraphicRiver to transform your photos in a few short clicks.

In this quick video below, learn how to use this Dirty Sketch Action for a cool traditional art effect.

How to Create a Dirty Sketch Effect in Photoshop

Open your photo into Photoshop. Here I'll be using this Model Portrait from Pixabay.

Then go to Window > Actions and load your new action from the drop-down menu within the Actions palette. When you're finished, select the action you would like to use before pressing Play. I'll be using the "out of tune" action from the list.

The first stage of the final result looks a bit muddy. To adjust it, lower the Fill of the background copies to 6, 8, and 22%.

You can keep the Layer Blend Mode for the Gradient Map at Normal, or change it to Overlay to color the photo. Alternatively, you can deep the original effect by using Adjustment Layers like Brightness & Contrast.

Here is the final result below with both Normal and Overlay Blend Modes.

Want to see this in action? Check out the video above to see this lesson at work!

A Bit More Detail

Learn more tips and tricks to improve your photo retouching skills from our experts. Check out the following tutorials below:

60 Seconds?!

This is part of a series of quick video tutorials on Envato Tuts+ in which we introduce a range of subjects, all in 60 seconds—just enough to whet your appetite. Let us know in the comments what you thought of this video and what else you'd like to see explained in 60 seconds!