Creating a Pencil Like Drawing in GIMP

A few months ago I saw a layout that had a photo merged into the background that looked like it was sketched in pencil. I just loved the effect and thought I would share a tutorial with you on how to achieve this effect using GIMP 2.6.

First pick out the photo you would like to use and open it up in GIMP, then follow these steps.

Step 1: Duplicate photo layer.

Now apply the following to the copy of photo.

Step 2: Colors > Invert.

Step 3: Image > Mode > Grayscale.

Step 4: Set the blending to color dodge.


Step 5: Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur - 50 radius setting.

Step 6: Image > mode > RGB.

Step 7: Merge layer with original photo layer.

Step 8: Now just add to your layout page and set blending to an overlay mode (I used multiply).