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Photo to pencil sketch

A graphite-style drawing from a portrait, pet or place, previewed live and drawn on this device.

Make a realistic pencil drawing from a photo: fine lines, soft shading, adjustable darkness, at full resolution for printing. It is free, needs no account and adds no watermark, and your files are not uploaded: everything runs in your browser on your device. The size limit is your device’s memory, and phones hold less; give the page a short while after one visit to save itself for offline use, and then it works offline.

Drop photos for pencil sketchesor click to choose files. Batches welcome.
    Working…

    Done

    Your files are processed on this device and never sent to a server. Reload the page to clear everything from memory.

    A pencil sketch keeps the outlines and the shadows that give a face or a building its shape, and drops everything else to white paper. It is a popular gift from a family photo, a way to reference a pose for drawing practice, and a clean look for a tattoo or wall print mock-up.

    This page is set for fine graphite lines: a narrow stroke width, moderate darkness and PNG output so the lines stay crisp when printed. Widen the strokes for softer shading, or push darkness up for a pressed-hard HB or 2B look. Nothing is traced by AI, so the drawing follows your photo exactly.

    For a portrait, a photo lit from the side gives the most three-dimensional sketch; flat front flash gives little shading to draw.

    How it works

    1. Drop the photo.
    2. Adjust stroke width and darkness while watching the preview.
    3. Press Draw in pencil and print or share the PNG.

    In your browser, not on a server

    Your browser decodes each photo (libheif or the Squoosh decoders step in for HEIC, AVIF and JPEG XL) and draws it on a canvas. Each pixel becomes grey with the Rec. 709 weights, a negative copy is blurred with three passes of a box blur, which approximates a Gaussian, and the grey is divided by the blurred negative (a colour dodge): flat areas go white and edges stay as strokes. A gamma curve sets how dark the lines are. The canvas is saved as JPG or PNG.

    Compared with upload-based tools: Photo-to-sketch sites and apps upload your photos, often of family and friends, run them on a server and add watermarks or subscriptions. This effect needs no server or AI model, so here it runs on your device at full resolution.

    Verify it yourself. Give the page a short while after one visit to save itself for offline use, then turn off Wi-Fi or switch to airplane mode and run the tool again. Or open your browser's developer tools (F12, or Cmd-Option-I on a Mac), pick the Network tab, and watch it while you convert. The panel above does the same count for you.

    Questions

    Can I trace the sketch onto paper?

    Yes. Print it at the size you want to draw, then use a lightbox or a window, or rub graphite on the back and trace over the lines. Lower darkness first so only the main lines print.

    Why do skin areas look patchy?

    Phone photos add noise and sharpening, which the effect turns into specks. Raise the stroke width a little, or shrink a very large photo first, and the texture evens out.

    Can I make it look like charcoal instead?

    Switch the style to Charcoal. It starts darker, with heavier edges and more contrast, like a charcoal stick on rough paper.

    Is the file uploaded anywhere?

    No. There is no server in this process. The page is a static file and the work is done by code running inside your browser tab. Give the page a short while after one visit to save itself for offline use; then you can turn off Wi-Fi and it still works.

    More image tools

    Photo to sketch

    Pencil, charcoal or coloured pencil from any photo, previewed live and drawn on this device.

    EXIF Viewer

    Drop a photo to read its metadata, including the location it was taken. The file is read on this device, so checking a private photo does not share it.

    Crop image

    Drag a box over the part you want, pick a ratio or a circle, and download the crop. The photo never leaves this device.

    Blur & pixelate image

    Hide faces, plates, addresses and account numbers before you share a photo. The photo never leaves this device.

    Other conversions