Faux Sketching or I Never Thought I'd Ever Use Gaussian Blur

I'm going to turn this photo of Tom Cruise into a sketch.



original

1. Duplicate Background (as usual)

2. Remove Colour
Image>Adjustments>Gradient Map>Black and White

3. Duplicate Layer

4. Invert Image
Image>Adjustments>Invert

5. Select Blend Mode: Colour Dodge (screen will turn white)

6. Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur>12 pixels (6-12 pixels work best).

Note: Filter>Other>Minimum>1 pixel is done instead of the above step if you're "sketching" a photo that is anything other than a portrait, e.g. landscape.

7. Merge layers to a new layer by:

• (Alt+Shft+Ctrl+E) which is the shortcut, or
• Layers>Merge to a new layer while depressing Alt key

b/w sketch

To Add Colour:

8. Duplicate background layer

9. Move background layer above all others

10. Select Blend Mode: Colour, 50%

coloured sketch

Who knew Gaussian Blur could be so useful?