Photo effect

Photo to Line Art

A photo in, a drawing out. Seven ways to reduce a picture to line, from one unbroken stroke to charcoal.

Line drawings made from photos

Every drawing below started as an ordinary photo, and each one uses a different style preset. The pose and proportions hold; everything else is reduced to line and tone.

Example 1: Line drawingExample 1: Line drawing
Example 2: Line drawingExample 2: Line drawing
Example 3: Line drawingExample 3: Line drawing
Example 4: Line drawingExample 4: Line drawing
Example 5: Line drawingExample 5: Line drawing
Example 6: Line drawingExample 6: Line drawing

Every style on this page

Each one is a tested preset with its own light, palette and line. Pick it in the panel above and run your own photo through it.

One Continuous Line

One Continuous Line

The whole portrait drawn without lifting the pen, in a single unbroken line.

Fine Ink

Fine Ink

Technical pen line work with delicate hatching, at editorial illustration weight.

Pencil Sketch

Pencil Sketch

Graphite on paper: soft shading, visible strokes and the tooth of a real sketchbook.

Blueprint

Blueprint

White line work on deep blueprint blue, drafted like a technical plan.

Tattoo Flash

Tattoo Flash

Bold even outlines with solid black fills, drawn the way tattoo flash is drawn.

Coloring Page

Coloring Page

Thick clean outlines and pure white space, ready to print and color in.

Charcoal Gesture

Charcoal Gesture

Loose charcoal strokes and smudged tone on textured paper.

Drawn, not filtered

An edge-detect filter traces every contrast boundary in the photo and leaves noise everywhere. These presets redraw the subject: the lines follow form, unimportant detail is dropped, and the drawing has the decisions a person would have made about what to leave out.

Start free
Your photoYour photo
Line drawingLine drawing
Seven line traditions

Seven line traditions

One continuous unbroken line for a minimal print. Technical pen with cross-hatching for editorial work. Graphite and charcoal when you want visible strokes and smudge. Blueprint white-on-blue, bold tattoo flash, and a thick-outline coloring page you can print and hand to a child.

Start free

How to turn a photo into line art

Three steps, a few seconds of waiting.

Glowing panels with one model selected from severalStreams of light forming into an emerging imageA finished image materializing from a vortex of glowing light

Frequently asked questions

How do I turn a photo into a line drawing?

Upload the photo, pick one of the seven line styles, and generate. The subject is redrawn as line work rather than filtered, so the result reads as a drawing instead of a traced outline.

Is the line art converter free?

New accounts receive free credits, enough for your first drawings. After that you pay per image, not per month, and the price is shown on the button before each run.

Can I get a coloring page from my own photo?

Yes. The coloring page preset returns thick clean outlines with no shading and large white areas, sized to print on a standard sheet.

Does it work for tattoo designs?

The tattoo flash preset gives bold even outlines with solid black fills, which is the right starting point for a design. Take the output to an artist rather than straight to the needle.

Which photos work best?

Clear subjects with decent contrast and an uncluttered background. Very dark or very busy photos give muddier lines.

Do I own the image?

Yes. Generated output is yours to use, including commercially, subject to the source model terms. No watermark on paid plans.

Turn your photo into line art