Outline Sketch Effect

In this tutorial I want to show you one very interesting way how to create text by using outline sketch effect. It can be done within a few minutes in Photoshop.

First of all, create a new document in Photoshop. I created document sized 1000×500 pixels with all the default settings, RGB, 72 dpi. Then fill it with color of #d7c7a8.

Then I would like to add some text to demonstrate effect on it. Get out the Horizontal Type Tool and write out your text on the middle of canvas, for example ‘Draft’ in whatever color you want.

In the above image I’ve used font called Hall Fetica (350 pt, Sharp), which is free. You can download this font from here: http://www.fontcubes.com/Hall-Fetica.font. After that set up fill opacity of text layer to 0% and apply Bevel and Emboss layer style to it.


Duplicate current layer with Ctrl+J and move it 5 pixels up and left. Go to Bevel and Emboss layer style options and change the shading angle and altitude to the similar which you can see on the picture below:

The result should be the same as mine:

We are done with text, now we need to add more guide lines to demonstrate outline sketch effect. At first I would like to add only vertical lines. Select the Line Tool (Weight: 1px) and add different length lines with black color:

Then merge all of it into the one layer and apply Filter > Blur > Motion Blur with next presets:

Now you should have something like this:

Then create a new layer and add horizontal lines with Line Tool (Weight: 1px) on the same way:

Merge all horizontal lines into the one layer again and apply Filter > Blur > Motion Blur with similar settings to these:

The result should be next:

Ok, now merge all layers together and apply Filter > Brush Strokes > Spatter.

Now you can see the difference after using this filter:

Apply another one Filter > Texture > Texturizer:

The result should be next:

And the last one filter that we have to apply is Filter > Noise > Add Noise:


That’s it for now! We got very nice and pretty simple outline sketch text effect, thanks for taking the time to read it!