Color digital image to coloring book.

Hey all,

I'm trying to convert some of my digital images into an image that children are able to color in when printed out.

Does anyone know the best way to do this with Photoshop of Paint Shop Pro?

I've been to many tutorial sites but just can't seem to get the right effect.

All I want is for my image to be white with black lines outlining the edges so that my children can be creative and color them in.

Thanks for your help.

Could you:

lower the saturation
raise the lightness
raise the contrast a small bit

to end up with something with no colour, that is quite pale. Could your children colour over this?

See attached 'before and after'

HTH

Thanks for the trouble but not really the effect that I'm after. I want the black lines outlining the edges that separate colors...

Anyone else?

Ah... I see. Sounds quite tricky

hi there,
if you post a sample of an image you would like your children to trace, i am sure you would get more ideas from the forum.

I would change the image to grayscale, trace along the edges of the shapes where you want the lines to be, lower the threshold for fill, and fill in white to the remaining parts of the image. This can be somewhat time-consuming, but it works and doesn't take too long once you get the hang of it.

hmm... wouldn't it be easier to convert image to greyscale as you say, but then create a new layer, lock layer of picture, trace outlines on new layer, then just delete picture layer, and set background colour to white

hmm.. I just did this really quickly and roughly, but it doesnt look too bad (i wish i had a graphics tablet ) Is this the effect you were after?

try this, it should be easier.

1.image > adjustment > desaturate
2.copy background layer
(now work only on copied layer, but keep orig.layer visible)
3.image > adjustment > invert
4.change layer blending mode to color dodge
(this should turn the image completely white)
5.filter > blur > guassian blur (radius 2.0)
6.repeat step 5 with the same radius several times, until the lines are dark enough

you may want to play around with different blur radius, but i think this will get you started. good luck!

WOW!! well done! thats amazing!

and after you get a decent image you can flatten or duplicate image and flatten, then use the sharpen filter or poster edges filter to get the image alittle sharper. this is a fun technique to make sketches from a photo.

It's amazing! Too bad I only have the trial of photoshop

Hmm.. I have fireworks, and can do the stages up to '4.change layer blending mode to color dodge' - do you know how to do this in fireworks - please say yes

sorry! i don't know how to do in fireworks.

arghh Maybe I'll post a thread 'How to do colour dodge in fireworks'

hi there
to do so in four steps have a look on that tutorial
http://wastedyouth.org/tutorials/tutorial%20(18)/
be good.