Change a Photo to Line Art in Sketchbook Pro
Sketchbook Pro is a seriously underrated program for digital art—it's cheap or even free (depending on the version), much easier to learn than Photoshop, and still it allows you lot to create wonderful artworks in any style. In this article, I'll show you 26 features of this plan, then that you can get to know it better—and mayhap autumn in love with information technology, as I did!
You're going to see me comparing Sketchbook Pro to Photoshop a lot. This is because Photoshop is used by many professional artists, which oftentimes makes people think information technology's also the all-time program for this purpose. But is it, really? I hope this commodity will help you answer this question.
Disclaimer: Sketchbook Pro is available for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. The desktop versions have all the features described hither, only the mobile ones may lack some of them, although the crucial functionalities are the same on all platforms.
Also, as a digital artist, you may be interested in the creative assets offered on Envato Elements. Fonts, photos, graphics, add together-ons—one subscription gives yous access to all of them. So if you lot're looking for some fonts for Sketchbook Pro, this is a great identify to start!
Do y'all prefer videos over long articles? And then I'm sure you'll love this new video from the Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel. You tin can learn all the tricks and tips by watching the A to Z of Sketchbook Pro: Tips, Tricks and Hacks video:
What Yous'll Acquire in This Sketchbook Pro Tutorial
- Why Sketchbook Pro is a great program for drawing and painting
- How to manage Sketchbook Pro brushes
- How to piece of work with color in Sketchbook Pro
- How to create colorful Sketchbook Pro brushes
- Some tips for Sketchbook Pro shading
A is for Amazing Pen Pressure Control
The main reason why I switched from Photoshop to Sketchbook Pro is its amazing pen pressure control. Despite having a not bad graphics tablet, in Photoshop I could never control the thickness and darkness of my lines as precisely as I wished. They always felt "heavy" to me, and they often concluded with an ugly hulk at the tip.
Simply Sketchbook, in contrast to Photoshop, was designed for drawing, and information technology shows! Simply requite information technology a try—you'll be surprised how make clean and precise your lines tin be.
B is for Blending Options
You lot may know about Blending Options from Photoshop—they permit you to alter the physical properties of a layer. For example, the Multiply mode works like a color filter—it makes the layer transparent, but darkening, so it's great for shading.
The Screen mode works like its opposite—information technology has a brightening issue, so you tin use information technology to add together smooth.
Sketchbook Pro as well has a special fashion that Photoshop lacks—it'southward called Glow, and information technology creates the event of emitting light. It's very useful for creating magical effects, or an intense smooth on metal.
C is for Customizable Brushes
The software comes with a great set of basic Sketchbook Pro brushes, but every artist has their own style and their own techniques. That's why Sketchbook Pro allows y'all to customize the brushes in four ways:
- The Pressure settings permit yous to define how the brush should react to the pressure of the pen.
- The Beak settings allow yous to define the shape of the brush, too as its softness and texture.
- The Stamp settings requite you command over the behavior of that shape.
- The Randomness settings permit yous to make the brush strokes more organic past adding some unpredictability to them.
Considering it'due south so piece of cake to create new brushes or duplicate and modify the current ones, you tin can freely experiment with these settings to create a perfect brush for whatever purpose. You can even create your ain colorful icons for them!
D is for Designed for Tablets
A graphics tablet is a must-have for a digital creative person. The creators of Sketchbook Pro kept that in mind, and you lot tin can access about of the menus without having to employ the right button of the mouse. Yous just take to click and concord, and so point to the called position in the menu.
Additionally, all these positions are visual, so you tin can quickly identify the one you need—and because they appear around your cursor, you're at an equal distance to all of them. Information technology may non seem like much, only it makes the whole workflow more intuitive and more than like to the procedure of traditional cartoon.
E is for the Erasing Brush
In Sketchbook Pro, the eraser is null more a brush that removes the strokes instead of adding them. This means yous can customize your eraser just as easily as whatever other brush, and you can create multiple erasers for different purposes, keeping them on your brush palette for quick admission. You lot can likewise plough whatsoever brush into an eraser temporarily past using the icon next to the colour bicycle.
F is for FlipBook
Although Sketchbook Pro is mainly a drawing programme, you can besides employ information technology for creating hand-drawn animations. In the FlipBook style, you can depict individual frames while also seeing the previous and side by side frames for amend precision. And then you tin can export these frames as a sequence of images, a GIF, or one of ii video formats.
To create a new FlipBook file, go to File > New FlipBook.
G is for Guides
In traditional art, you can use various tools to create more anticipated lines, similar diverse types of rulers. In order to emulate this type of workflow, Sketchbook Pro offers special guides that allow yous to design your line or a bend before cartoon it. If y'all're into architectural drawing or product design, you'll love the level of control these tools give you!
H is for HSL: Hue, Saturation, and Lightness
You may exist familiar with Photoshop'due south HSB colour model—Hue, Saturation, and Brightness. Sketchbook Pro uses the HSL color model instead—Hue, Saturation, and 50ightness. Although they may look pretty similar, they work slightly differently. In HSB, Saturation defines the amount of white in the color, and Effulgence defines the amount of black. In HSL, Saturation defines the amount of gray in the color, and Lightness defines the amount of both white and blackness.
While we're on this subject, Sketchbook also has a cracking little tool: the Randomize style. In this mode, you lot pick a color and set the range of randomness of each component. This means that each of your strokes may await slightly unlike, without you having to change the colour each time.
I is for Invisible Cursor
When you utilise a mouse, you need a cursor to tell you what y'all're pointing at. But when you use a tablet, the tip of your Sketchbook Pro pen tool plays the same part. And if you use a brush smaller than the nib, then a cursor in the form of a cross-hair icon can make it the way and become quite annoying.
That'due south why in Sketchbook Pro y'all take an selection to make the cursor invisible when the stroke is too small to show the outline of the brush shape. Only if you lot'd rather not run into the outline either, e'er, then yous can plough it off too! Simply go to Edit > Preferences > Brush, and experiment with the settings to find the ones that piece of work the all-time for you.
J is for Jitter-Free Lines
If you're not using a screen tablet, sometimes information technology may be hard to keep your lines actually smooth, as they would exist on paper. Sketchbook Pro has three solutions for this problem:
First, the Steady Stroke office works similar a line stabilizer. You tin make it actually subtle, to remove the jitter, or really strong, to gain full control over the curves you lot're drawing. It'southward perfect for inking your line fine art!
Second, the Predictive Stroke office predicts what shape you're trying to draw, and attempts to make it more accurate. If you lot're trying to draw a circumvolve, information technology will make your lines perfectly round; if you're trying to depict a triangle, it will make the lines directly.
Tertiary, if you desire to draw perfect geometrical shapes, the Depict Style part will allow y'all to draw straight lines, rectangles, and ovals, likewise as polygonal chains. What'due south important, the style of these lines volition be based on whichever brush you currently have selected.
Thousand is for Keyboard Customization
Fifty-fifty though it's possible to utilize Sketchbook Pro without a keyboard, if you lot feel you're more efficient with one, it'southward possible to assign a hotkey to most of the functions. Many of the hotkeys are identical to the ones you may know from Photoshop, but you lot're complimentary to modify them whatsoever way you lot want!
L is for Layers
In traditional fine art, you're limited to a unmarried sail, merely digital art gives you more freedom in the form of layers. Layers allow yous to draw sure elements separately, and then that yous tin can alter a part of the drawing even after it has been covered with something else.
Layers can too be duplicated, then that yous can create a backup of a sketch before y'all starting time modifying it. Y'all can also lock the transparency of a layer—this mode, you'll always stay inside the lines when coloring or shading.
One thousand is for Multi-Platform
Sketchbook Pro is available for four platforms: Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. This allows yous to start your artwork on the burrow, with the iPad on your lap, and then sit at your desk when you need a bigger screen and more precision.
However, the mobile versions of Sketchbook Pro are slightly limited in comparison to their desktop counterparts—for example, it's non possible to import any new brushes into them. But personally, I even so cull the iOS version of Sketchbook Pro over Procreate—mainly because it gives me twenty layers in 6k resolution, which Procreate can't offer for older iPads.
N is for No Limitations for Your Brushes
I recollect my joy when I first discovered that I could create a brush out of any shape or photograph in Photoshop—and my disappointment when I learned they could only be monochromatic and semi-transparent.
Sketchbook Pro doesn't have this kind of limitation: you tin create a brush out of anything, and proceed the colors if you wish. It'due south perfect for painting grass, leaves, fur, scales, and other textures. Y'all don't fifty-fifty take to include colors—just the possibility to include both shadows and highlights in your brush will make your grayscale brushes much more powerful.
O is for I of Many
Sketchbook Pro is a dandy program, but information technology was created to emulate the traditional feel of creating art—it doesn't take all those photo-editing functions that artists learned to use to their reward, like photo filters or the liquify tool.
Even so, this isn't really a problem—if you save your file in the PSD format, you can switch between Sketchbook Pro and any photo editor whenever you need! This mode, you can get the best of both worlds—using Sketchbook Pro when you demand a 18-carat painting experience, and a photo editor when you need actress magic.
P is for the Perspective Guides
Artists often start their drawings with a perspective filigree, just while it'due south really useful, information technology also can be tedious to have to describe it every time. Sketchbook Pro makes your life easier in that regard, by offering a gear up of Perspective Guides—y'all just accept to edit the vanishing points, and and so everything you depict will be automatically adjusted to the perspective grid. Y'all tin can draw in one-bespeak mode, two-point fashion, 3-indicate manner, and even fisheye mode!
Q is for a Quick Backup Copy
Has it e'er happened to you lot? Your system crashed when you were in the center of drawing, and when you tried to open up the same file again, it was corrupted—with no mode to become it back. Or maybe you made some big changes to your artwork, and then wanted to revert them, merely reached the limit of undos?
That'south why it'due south good to create multiple copies of your artwork during the procedure. Sketchbook Pro makes it actually easy—merely printing Control-Shift-S instead of Control-South to save another version of your file. A number will exist added to the proper name of the file, then that you'll always know which version is the latest.
R is for Circular Puck Buttons
A couple of useful innovations in Sketchbook Pro are Colour Pucks and Brush Pucks.
The Brush Puck allows you to rapidly alter the Opacity and Size of the brush, which is especially useful if y'all prefer to work without a keyboard—y'all just demand to click and drag up/down and to the left/right.
The Colour Puck works the same way, allowing you to quickly increase or decrease the Saturation and Lightness.
S is for the Symmetry Tools
Some digital tools piece of work like magic, and the Symmetry tool is i of those. You tin place the axis of symmetry anywhere you wish, and when drawing on one side of it, a symmetrical copy of your cartoon will appear in real fourth dimension on the other side.
What'due south even meliorate, you tin use up to xvi axes of symmetry at the same time, creating a beautiful mandala even from the simplest strokes. Even if you think you tin't describe, this mandala-creating function will help you unleash your inventiveness in a very relaxing and fun way.
T is for the Toolbar
Digital cartoon is not merely virtually creating strokes on the canvas. Sometimes, you may need some extra tools—for instance, to select something or to ingather the artwork. These useful tools tin can be found in the Toolbar. As with all the other windows in Sketchbook Pro, you can drag the toolbar anywhere on the screen or plow it off birthday. The toolbar likewise allows y'all to quickly bring back the other windows subsequently turning them off.
U is for Unifying Your Colors With Blending
When you apply paint to a sheet in traditional art, it interacts with the previous strokes. The shape of the brush and the consistency of the paint both bear upon the concluding upshot of the mix. But in digital fine art, brushes are usually more "sterile"—one colour covers another with more or less opacity, and that's all.
In Sketchbook Pro, nevertheless, it'southward possible to plough each brush into a blending brush—and non in just ane, but 4 dissimilar ways, each producing a unlike issue! Using these dissimilar modes will assist you lot create artworks that look more like traditional paintings.
V is for "V", the One Shortcut for All Transformations
In digital art, after you draw something, you tin can motion it to a dissimilar place on the sail, resize it, or rotate it. In Sketchbook Pro, you can practice all of this with a single shortcut: V.
Holding this push will open a visual menu that allows you to do all these transformations by clicking and dragging. Nevertheless, if you lot want to resize the object in a more precise way, you lot should go to the Toolbar and use the Transform part. Information technology will let you to drag each corner of the bounding box separately, as well as simulating a 3D rotation.
W is for the Cycle of Colors
Y'all tin draw using black only, merely colors make creating more fun! Sketchbook gives you a color cycle fabricated from a Hue band and a Saturation/Lightness square. Go around the ring to change the Hue, go up the square to increase the Lightness, and get to the right to increment Saturation.
Using the wheel may exist more intuitive for some than using the HSL sliders, so if yous don't demand them, yous can just hibernate them and get out the wheel simply. And if you lot desire to salve even more space on your screen, you lot can close the color bike and open a mini version of it by clicking the color puck.
Ten is for the Actress Functions
Although the interface of Sketchbook Pro is very visual, there are certain functions that can simply be accessed through the text bill of fare. These include the preferences of the program, irresolute the size of the prototype, mirroring and flipping the sheet, and basic adjustments (irresolute the Brightness/Contrast or Hue/Saturation). If you can't detect an pick in the visual menus, it's probably hither!
Y is for Your Own Castor Palettes
An artist needs to have all their important brushes inside attain, and Sketchbook Pro gives this to you lot in the class of a convenient brush palette. You lot can identify the palette wherever you want on the screen, and the large, colorful icons will help you lot quickly observe the brush you need. Yous can also access your other brush sets in a separate window that you can place anywhere on the screen. Any of these brush sets can exist pinned to the main palette at whatsoever time.
Z is for Zooming, Rotating, and Panning With a Single Key
While drawing, you often have to move across the canvass, or rotate it to change your perspective, or zoom in and out. Having to utilize a separate cardinal for each of those would tiresome y'all down, then that'due south why in Sketchbook Pro y'all can access all these settings with a single key—the Spacebar, past default. And if you assign it to your tablet pen push button, then it will increase your speed even more!
Summary
So this was the A to Z of Sketchbook Pro: 26 of the features that you must know to go the most out of this program. Even though Sketchbook Pro doesn't have even half of the features of Photoshop, the features information technology has are exactly the ones yous need to create your fine art. It'south uncomplicated, it'southward fast, and you get all your tools within your reach.
And if you're interested in digital art in general, y'all may as well like our other tutorials on this bailiwick:
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Source: https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/a-to-z-of-sketchbook-pro-tips-tricks-and-hacks--cms-38283