August.29.2005

Transform a Digital Photo into a Picture with the Most Realistic Hand-drawn Look

Sketch Master Plug-in v1.14 Has Over 30 Image Editing Controls and Options to Render Results that Cannot Be Achieved by Any Known Filter or 3rd Party Plug-in

Redfield Plugins announces the release of Sketch Master Plug-in 1.14. Compatible with all currently popular image editors, this plug-in enables rapid transformation of a photo into an image that looks as if it had been drawn with traditional art tools such as lead pencil, ink-pencil, crayon, charcoal, to name a few. The final output image is a blend of three layers – strokes, lines, and background, each of which is created based on specified settings. Unique to this plugin is the ability to alter stroke direction on different planes, having control over outline characteristics and the flexibility of adding your own stroke and background textures.

"Sketch Master Plug-in is the only application in its category that retains so much portrait similarity to the original in transformed images", says John Redfield, author of the product. "The plug-in offers you over 30 different settings that expand your creative control over the output, allowing you to achieve the most realistic hand-drawn look. The choice of patterns for strokes and backgrounds is rich. However you can easily include your own .jpg texture files, or download free textures from our website. For those of you, who like experimenting and sharing results, we have added the ability to create and save custom presets to a custom named file. This lets you save you own combination of settings that delivers an interesting effect and share it with other people."

Making pictures from photos in Sketch Master is incredibly simple and doesn't require any deep knowledge of graphic design. In the beginning, you can use the Dice, a random settings generator, which serves as a fun way to familiarize yourself with the filter capabilities. As you get more comfortable, you can try manipulating settings manually: change the depth and direction of strokes; control lines intensity, clearness and width; adjust edge sharpness; adjust image saturation and much more. Basically, all your editing efforts are restricted to toggling sliders, checking and unchecking checkboxes. The plug-in lets you "Undo" and "Redo" an unlimited number of editing actions.

Sketch Master works in real time. Therefore you can immediately see how your changes affect the photo in the image preview area. At any point of editing, you can refer to the help file, which has clear instructions with sample images.

Pricing and Availability

Sketch Master Plug-in 1.14 runs under Windows 95/98/Me/2000/NT4/XP/ and costs $39.90 (USD) for a single-user license. Licensed users of any previous version of the plug-in can upgrade to the new version for free. Registered customers are entitled to free future updates and lifetime technical support. Additional information on Sketch Master Plug-in, image samples, extra presets, as well as its demo version are available from www.redfieldplugins.com