Smart Way to Quickly Make COMIC BOOK DRAWINGS From Your Photos! Photoshop Tutorial
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Comic Book Drawing Effect in Photoshop turns any photo into bold black line art layered with posterized color, using nothing but the Poster Edges, Threshold, and Oil Paint filters.
In this tutorial, you will learn to create comic book drawings from your photos in Photoshop!
But if you have Photoshop on your computer, you can easily create comic book drawings from your photos!
In the next few minutes, I’ll be teaching you how to “extract” the lineart and colors from your photo. I’ll combine them to create marvelous comic art in just a few clicks!
Key Takeaways
- Poster Edges does two jobs at once: it reduces the number of colors in the image and adds black outlines along every edge it finds.
- The comic book drawing effect actually uses two separate copies of the same layer, one built for line art and one built for color.
- Threshold only ever produces black and white, so any pixel above 128 turns white and anything below it turns black.
- The Oil Paint filter is what keeps the line art from looking jagged and computer generated.
- Multiply is what lets the color layer show through the line art without losing the black outlines.
- Because everything runs through a Smart Object, every filter setting can be reopened and adjusted after the effect is finished.
Table of contents
What You Will Learn
- How to turn a photo into black line art with the Poster Edges and Threshold filters
- How to build a separate posterized color layer from the same photo
- How to use the Oil Paint filter to smooth jagged line art
- How to combine line art and color with the Multiply blending mode
- How to keep every adjustment editable with a Smart Object
Requirements
Before you start
- Photoshop 2019 (version 20.0) or the current version
Comic Book Drawing Effect in Photoshop: Keyboard Shortcuts
| Action | Windows | macOS |
|---|---|---|
| Free Transform | Ctrl T | Command T |
| Duplicate Layer | Ctrl J | Command J |
| Zoom Tool | Z | Z |
| Subtract from a selection | Alt | Option |
| Save | Ctrl S | Command S |
| Group Layers | Ctrl G | Command G |
Creating the Lineart
On Photoshop, open your background image and the image of your subject. If you only have one image to transform into a comic book drawing, you may skip the next few steps.
Go to Select > All.
Then go to Edit > Copy Merge. This step will merge both photos to create one image composition with the full details.
To further apply more effects without destroying the quality of the image, right-click on the current layer and select Convert to Smart Object.
Press CtrlJ (Windows) or CommandJ (macOS) to duplicate the layer, then rename the duplicated layer as “Lines” to avoid confusion later on.
Then, disable the visibility of the original layer by clicking on the eye icon so you can focus on the next steps.
Achieving the Color
Comic book drawings are known for their vibrant and posterized take on colors.
Since the colors in our photos are fully-rendered in different shades, I would need to reduce the number of colors in the image. Poster Edges in Photoshop lets you achieve the effect of comic book drawings from your photos.
Go to Filter > Filter Gallery > Artistic Group > Poster Edges.
The Posterization value slider dictates the number of colors shown in the layer.
That means, the higher the value, the more colors are shown, and the lower the value, the less number of colors are shown.
Next, set the outline edges. Every time Photoshop detects an edge, it will add black, and you can control this by adjusting the slider of Edge Thickness and Edge Intensity.
Emphasizing the Lines
Real comic book art is characterized by the thick lineart that emphasizes the characters and every detail in the composition.
Luckily, the Threshold effect can help us achieve this in Photoshop by transforming all light-colored pixels into white and turning all darker-colored pixels into black. This results in a high-contrast, black-and-white image.
To proceed, go to Image > Adjustment > Threshold
Tip: Any value lower than 128 will turn black, and any value higher than 128 will turn white.
Fine-tune the Threshold value to give you the lineart that you need to achieve the comic book look.
If you have a stark contrast between black outlines on a white background, then you have achieved the desired effect!
After playing around with the Threshold, you may notice the jagged black edges and are not so visually pleasing.
To fix this minor problem, go to Filter > Stylize > Oil Paint and uncheck the Lighting checkbox in the Oil Paint window.
Click here to learn how to make your ordinary photo into an Oil Painting Masterpiece!
This filter will give you a “painted” look of your lines by smoothing and elongating the jagged edges.
Lastly, experiment on the other sliders such as Stylization, Cleanliness, Scale, and Bristle Detail to help you give a cleaner, painted effect.
Creating the Color Layer
Disable the “Lines” layer so that the original layer is the only thing visible on your workspace.
After that, select the original layer and press CtrlJ (Windows) or CommandJ (macOS) to duplicate it.
Rename the duplicated layer to “Color.” Go to Filter > Filter Gallery > Poster Edges.
With our lineart set, I will focus on the color by removing the edges and retaining the color.
To do this, set the Edge Thickness = 0 and set the Edge Intensity = 0.
Press OK to exit the window.
To give the color layer a hand-painted look, go to Filter > Stylize > Oil Paint.
After setting the right adjustments, just press OK to exit the window.
Combining the Lineart and the Color
On the Layers Panel, select the Lineart layer, enable its visibility, and set the Blending Mode to Multiply.
The Multiply blending mode is perfect for coloring lineart. On a white canvas, it retains the original color and keeps the black color, similar to the traditional way of coloring with colored pens over a black lineart.
Go ahead and experiment on amplifying the saturation and hues of the image to give a richer color.
By sharpening the lines, you can emulate that gritty look of real comic book pages!
I hope you find this tutorial as a fun and informative way of learning how to create drawings from your photos in Photoshop!
Frequently Asked Questions
The comic book drawing effect in Photoshop turns a photo into black line art layered over posterized color. It combines the Poster Edges, Threshold, and Oil Paint filters with the Multiply blending mode.
Poster Edges reduces the number of colors in an image and adds black outlines wherever it detects an edge. The Posterization slider controls how many colors remain, and the Edge Thickness and Edge Intensity sliders control how heavy the outlines look.
Threshold turns every pixel in the image to either pure black or pure white, based on a midpoint value of 128. Any pixel brighter than that value becomes white, and anything darker becomes black, which is what creates the line art.
The Oil Paint filter smooths and elongates the jagged edges that Threshold leaves behind. Turning off its Lighting option keeps the result flat, so it reads as ink rather than paint with visible depth.
The color layer reuses Poster Edges with the Edge Thickness and Edge Intensity both set to zero. That keeps the posterized colors without adding a second set of black outlines on top of the line art layer.
Multiply keeps the black line art visible while letting the white background of that layer disappear. That is what allows the posterized color layer underneath to show through without covering the outlines.
Yes. The technique works on most images, though a photo with clear edges and strong contrast produces the cleanest line art. You can also reuse the same Smart Object as a template for a new photo later.
Conclusion
The comic book drawing effect in Photoshop only needs three filters: Poster Edges, Threshold, and Oil Paint, combined with the Multiply blending mode.
Because the whole effect lives inside a Smart Object, you can always reopen any filter and fine-tune the line art or the color, even on a different photo.
Watch the full video above for every adjustment in real time, and comment on the video if you have a question.
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