Portrait Photo To Color Sketch In Photoshop 2

Step 7: Merge The Layers Onto A New Layer

Hold down the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key on your keyboard and with the key still held down, go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen and choose Merge Visible:

Hold down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) and go to Layer > Merge Visible.

Normally, the Merge Visible command would essentially flatten our image by merging all of our existing layers down onto a single layer, but by holding down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) while choosing Merge Visible, we told Photoshop to keep all of our initial layer intact, merging them on to a new layer (Layer 2) above the originals:

The three original layers are combined onto a fourth layer above them.

Step 8: Change The Blend Mode To Multiply And Adjust The Layer Opacity

Go up to the Blend Mode option at the top of the Layers panel and change the blend mode for the merged layer from Normal to Multiply. This will darken the lines in the sketch effect. If you find the effect is now too dark, lower the Opacity value, which is to the right of the Blend Mode option. Keep an eye on the image as you adjust the opacity to fine tune the results. I'm going to lower mine down to 50%:

Change the blend mode to Multiply, then adjust the result with the Opacity option.

Here's my result after darkening the effect:

The sketch now appears darker against the white background.

Step 9: Duplicate The Background Layer

At this point, the sketch effect is complete and if you're happy with it in black and white, you can stop here. If you want to add color to the sketch, continue on with these last few steps. We're going to colorize the sketch using the colors from the original photo. Our original photo is on the Background layer, so we'll need to make a copy of it. Click on the Background layer in the Layers panel to select it:

Select the Background layer to make it active.

With the Background layer selected, go up to the Layer menu, choose New, then choose Layer via Copy, or press Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac). Photoshop makes a copy of the layer, names it "Background copy" and places it directly above the original:

The copy appears above the original Background layer.

Step 10: Move The Background Copy Above The Other Layers

To use this Background copy layer to colorize our sketch, we need to move it above the other layers. We can jump it straight to the top of the layer stack by pressing the keyboard shortcut Shift+Ctrl+] (Win) / Shift+Command+] (Mac). The ] is the right bracket key. With the Background copy layer now at the top, the original image will once again appear in the document window:

The Background copy layer has been jumped to the top of the layer stack.

Step 11: Change The Blend Mode To Color

To mix the colors of the original image in with the sketch effect, change the blend mode for the Background copy layer from Normal to Color:

Change the layer blend mode to Color.

The Color blend mode mixes the colors from the current layer with the brightness values of the layers below it, giving us our colorized sketch effect:

The result after changing the blend mode to Color.

Step 12: Lower The Opacity

Finally, if you find the color looks too intense, simply lower the Opacity value at the top of the Layers panel to fine-tune the results. I'll lower mine down to 65%:

Lower the layer opacity to reduce the amount of color in the sketch.

With the opacity lowered, here is my final result:

The final color sketch effect.
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