Pencil Sketch Effect
Turn a photo into a pencil drawing — graphite, colored pencil or charcoal — with live softness and darkness controls and a PNG download.
Drag & drop a photo here, or click to browse
No uploads. Your files stay on your device.
How it works
Drop a photo and it is turned into a pencil drawing instantly. The tool converts the picture to greyscale, inverts it, blurs the inverted copy and then blends the two with a colour-dodge divide — the classic darkroom trick that leaves only the edges as pencil strokes while flat areas fade to blank paper. Everything runs on the Canvas API inside your browser, so your photo is never uploaded and works offline once the page has loaded.
Line softness is the blur radius: a small value gives fine, scratchy hatching (great for portraits and architecture), a large value gives broad, smudged shading. Darkness stretches the contrast, so turn it up if the sketch looks washed out and down if it looks sooty. Switch to Colored pencil to keep the original hues, or Charcoal for a white-on-black chalkboard look, then download the result as a lossless PNG.
Frequently asked questions
How do I turn a photo into a pencil drawing?
Drop your photo on this page and the sketch appears instantly. The tool converts the image to greyscale, blurs an inverted copy and blends the two with a colour-dodge divide, which leaves only the edges as pencil strokes. Adjust Line softness for finer or broader strokes, adjust Darkness if the result looks washed out or sooty, then click Download PNG.
Is my photo uploaded to a server?
No. The whole effect runs in your browser with the Canvas API, so the picture never leaves your device and the page keeps working offline once it has loaded. There is no sign-up, no watermark and no ads, and the downloaded PNG is the full-quality result.
What is the difference between the graphite, colored pencil and charcoal styles?
Graphite is the classic grey-on-white pencil drawing. Colored pencil keeps the original hues of your photo and shades them with the same stroke pattern, which suits landscapes and portraits. Charcoal inverts the result for a white-on-black chalkboard look. You can switch between them at any time and the preview updates immediately.