Pencil Effect Macro

[R C-R]

This Sketch effect.afmacro is my attempt to convert the technique demonstrated in the Affinity Revolution Transform any Photo into a Pencil Drawing (Affinity Photo Tutorial) into a useful Affinity Photo macro. These are the steps I came up with:

Since the first step selects the top layer regardless of its name or type, for best results it should be the only layer in the document & a pixel layer. The macro does not alter this layer so if you don't like the effect you can delete the layers it creates. The two user adjustments adjust the radius of the Gaussian blur & the Black Level of the Levels Adjustment layer. They can be tweaked after the macro is applied in the usual way. Adding some saturation back to the HSL "_desaturate" layer creates a colored pencil effect.

 

A couple of 'before & after' examples of what you can expect:

 

 

Comments, criticisms, & questions welcomed.

[pioneer]

Just installed and tried, very impressed R C-R.  Thank you very much for sharing. Cheers John

[R C-R]

I am glad you like it but thanks really should go to Affinity Revolution for the video -- all I did was adapt what I saw in it to a macro.

[Grethe]

Thank you for sharing. I'm going to try it now. 

Edited March 12, 2018 by Grethe

[carlt]

Thank

[StuartRc]

nice!

[DM1]

Hi, I am having a problem getting Affinity Photo (iPad) to recognise this macro file. Any suggestions?

[Alfred]

29 minutes ago, DM1 said:

Hi, I am having a problem getting Affinity Photo (iPad) to recognise this macro file. Any suggestions?

 

It’s greyed out when I try to import it ‘as is’. If I rename it from *.macro to *.macros it becomes available for import and it seems to import correctly, but I can’t find it in the Macro studio.

 

I think it may need to be exported via the Library panel rather than the Macro panel in the desktop version to make it available for use in the iPad version.

[R C-R]

I don't know if all desktop macros can be used with the iPad version but you can try this Sketch.afmacros version, which was exported from the Library panel & see if it works.

[Alfred]

8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I don't know if all desktop macros can be used with the iPad version but you can try this Sketch.afmacros version, which was exported from the Library panel & see if it works.

 

That did the trick. Many thanks!

[affwin]

Hi R C-R, great macro, gives very nice drawings. Thank you for sharing.
Greetings Dieter

[1nf0t3ch]

I downloaded your macro but the format is not recognised: Sketch effect.afmacro.

I would appreciate any help.

Regards,

Ros

Sketch effect.afmacro

[MEB]

Hi 1nf0t3ch,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Since this is an afmacro file (without an "S" at the end) - which contains the steps of a single macro - you have to import it from the Macro panel (not the Library which is used to import a set of macros - an .afmacros file). So go to menu View ▸ Studio ▸ Macro to enable this panel, click the Import icon on the top right of the panel and select the .afmacro file. To add it to the Library for later re-use click the second icon on the group on the right on the Macro panel.

 

[1nf0t3ch]

On 6/5/2018 at 5:12 PM, MEB said:

Hi 1nf0t3ch,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Since this is an afmacro file (without an "S" at the end) - which contains the steps of a single macro - you have to import it from the Macro panel (not the Library which is used to import a set of macros - an .afmacros file). So go to menu View ▸ Studio ▸ Macro to enable this panel, click the Import icon on the top right of the panel and select the .afmacro file. To add it to the Library for later re-use click the second icon on the group on the right on the Macro panel.

  

Thank you so much. I will try this out!

It worked very well!

Thank you again!

Regards,

Ros

Edited June 15, 2018 by 1nf0t3ch
Update

[jak]

Thank you RCR. This is great.

[Pariah73]

On 3/12/2018 at 7:20 AM, R C-R said:

This Sketch effect.afmacro is my attempt to convert the technique demonstrated in the Affinity Revolution Transform any Photo into a Pencil Drawing (Affinity Photo Tutorial) into a useful Affinity Photo macro. These are the steps I came up with:

Since the first step selects the top layer regardless of its name or type, for best results it should be the only layer in the document & a pixel layer. The macro does not alter this layer so if you don't like the effect you can delete the layers it creates. The two user adjustments adjust the radius of the Gaussian blur & the Black Level of the Levels Adjustment layer. They can be tweaked after the macro is applied in the usual way. Adding some saturation back to the HSL "_desaturate" layer creates a colored pencil effect.

 

A couple of 'before & after' examples of what you can expect:

 

 

Comments, criticisms, & questions welcomed.

nice work! Thank you!  Yes, Ezra Anderson does great tutorials. I miss hearing his cheerful voice and seeing his 'fresh from rumspringa' face that he has. His wife does just as great a job with narration though. 

[Richio75]

Thanks this is an awesome macro.

[John Rostron]

I have just tried this on a tileable image. The Pencil effect works well and does what I want, except that it creates a dark vignette around the image which shows clearly if I then tile the image. However, if I create my tiled image first, then apply the macro, the vignette is confines to the outsides and I can trim this off if I wish.

John

[Jumblemania]

Hi R C-R,

I've been trying to use your macro to make a colour photo look like a b & w sketch, but I'm having trouble.  Would it work differently with the updated version of Affinity Photo?  It's brilliant that you have put this on the forum.

Do you have advice for doing this?  I'm trying to change a nature photo, so I want to keep a lot of the detail, but I'm really struggling.

Any help would be appreciated.

Many thanks,

Debbie

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Jumblemania said:

Would it work differently with the updated version of Affinity Photo? 

When I run it in 1.8.2 on my Mac, I get a message saying that the Assistant upgraded the legacy effect, but other than that it works fine for me.

[T V]

Thanks, it's a nice one!😁

[Slotcar Bob]

Not sure how to install. AP or AD? I have both. Thank you. Excited to try. Using Mac OS with Catalina.

[walt.farrell]

29 minutes ago, Slotcar Bob said:

Not sure how to install. AP or AD? I have both. Thank you. Excited to try. Using Mac OS with Catalina.

Macros are exclusive to Affinity Photo. And as it's a .afmacro file (no s on the end) you import it into the Macro studio panel.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Macros are exclusive to Affinity Photo. And as it's a .afmacro file (no s on the end) you import it into the Macro studio panel.

If you prefer to import it into a Library category of its own, you can use the macros version in this post above.

[Greg T]

tutorial YouTube video doesn't work for Affinity 2.0