Check out today's giveaway called Sketch Drawer from SoftOrbit's, a type of photo editing tool used for converting photographs and images to pencil sketches. You can convert both Color and monochrome images to pencil drawings with various settings and options to choose from that allow you to either edit your images manually or via preset controls.
You can find the deal on the giveaway page HERE or alternatively you can find out more about Sketch Drawer v1.0 from SoftOrbits HERE
Short Review
You can select a whole folder of images or select individual images. When selecting a folder, the contents of the folder can be seen to the left of the main workspace:
selecting a folder
browsing a folder
left hand colum shows you all images in the folder
Conversion is simple. Select the image you want to change to a sketch either by selecting an individual image or from a folder. If you select the folder option all images contained in the folder will be shown as thumb nails to the left of the work space. Once you've chosen your image click on the sketch tool to open up the panel to the right of the image. This is locked until you select sketch.
Using presets with example image that highlights the effect
Once opened you can use the various tools such as presets which include several conversion formats such as detailed sketch, pen, felt tip to pen, high contrast, light colors, pastel etc. When you hover your mouse pointe rover these an example image will show you the effect it has on the image. You can also edit the strength of the strokes and includes contor, detailed, small detail, normal, simple, light airy plus a few more.
presets
Strength of Stroke
There are three stroke types color sketching, hatching and filling white areas as well as texture hardness and detail controls. There are ten textures to choose from and the hardness and detail are controlled by sliders.
You'll also find a colorise tool that can be selected via a checkbox. You can control the amount of coloration and the detail via sliders.
colorize tool
Finally there's a color shift option that will enable you to give a color cast to your images . The normalize histogram
original
colorized
after using color shift
using normalise Histogram
options you want from the panel to the right of the workspace i.e. color sketch, Enable hatching or fill white areas as well as selecting
texture styles
Along the bottom of the programs GUI to the right are links to Facebook, Twitter and You tube. The You tube link takes you to a page full of you tube videos detailing softorbit programs and the facebook page takes you to Softorbits facebook page.
To increase the size of the workspace you can minimize the tool bar via the view menu
Suggestions for additional tools:
The program would be enhance by adding more photo editing tools such as different selection tools, some repair tools such as a clone tool and the ability to change the orientation of the image selected. As it is you require a separate photo editing tool to do these jobs if required.
Conclusion
Overall I really like this program. though as mentioned above in the suggestions, I'd like to see more editing options. I think the program would benefit by adding a full blown photo editing package as well as other art styles such as oil and acrylics. Maybe enable this program to be used as an add-on for other photo editors.
I'd also include video tutorials linked to the help document supplied with the program. novice users would find such videos invaluable. :)
