How to turn a photo into a pencil sketch, watercolour or cartoon

Open Photo filters, choose your photo and tap a look in the Art tab: Pencil sketch, Colour pencil, Charcoal, Ink drawing, Watercolour, Oil paint or Cartoon. Adjust its lines or texture, then download. The drawing is made in your browser from the photo's own edges and colours.

Steps

1. Open Photo filters and choose a photo. Clear, well-lit photos with a definite subject turn into the cleanest drawings.
2. Tap the Art tab. Each look shows a small preview of your photo.
3. Tap the medium you want. It appears under Applied looks with a Strength slider.
4. Open Adjust on it. Each medium shows only the sliders it uses: Stroke size for all of them, Lines for every look except Oil paint, Texture for every look except Cartoon, and Colours for Cartoon.
5. Download. PNG keeps fine pencil lines crisp; JPG gives a smaller file.

What each medium does

How the drawing is made

These looks do not use a model and do not invent anything. They are built from plain image processing steps that artists' tools have used for years: lines traced from the photo's edges, hatching from its shadows, smoothing that keeps edges sharp while it flattens colour, brush patches that follow the image's own flow, and paper or canvas grain on top. Your face, the scene and the composition stay exactly where they were in the photo. What changes is the medium.

Because the drawing follows the photo, the photo decides the result:

• Strong light and shadow give the pencil and charcoal looks their depth. A flat, evenly lit photo comes out pale.
• A simple background keeps the lines on the subject. Busy patterns become busy drawings; blur or replace the background first with the Background tool if needed.
• Larger subjects draw better than tiny faces in a wide shot. Crop in close before you choose the look.

Settings for common results

• A light, delicate sketch: Pencil sketch at 100%, with Lines turned down.
• A bold poster: Ink drawing, then add a short title with the Text tool.
• A painting for a print: Oil paint or Watercolour with Texture raised so the paper or canvas shows, saved as PNG.
• A cartoon profile picture: Cartoon, moving Colours until the tone bands look right; then make square profile-picture copies with the social media image resizer.
• A softer mix: Apply an Art look below 100% strength to let some of the photo show through.

Art looks can be stacked with others, up to four in all. A Warm film look over Watercolour, for example, gives an aged-paper colour.

Speed and size

Drawing and painting take more work than a colour filter. The smoothing steps run on a copy of at most about 2 megapixels and are scaled back up, so even a 12 MP phone photo downloads in about two seconds on a typical device. The saved picture keeps your photo's full width and height.

A small "Made with t.myu" credit starts in the bottom-left corner. Tap the cross on it, or switch it off under Credit, to save the picture without it.

Questions

Is this an AI art generator?

No. The looks redraw the photo with ordinary drawing and painting steps on your device. Nothing new is added to the picture, and no model is involved in the Art looks.

Can I turn a photo into a line drawing for colouring in?

Try Ink drawing, or Pencil sketch with Texture turned down. Download as PNG and print it.

Does it work on a photo of a pet?

Yes. The Art looks work on any photo, not only people. Pencil sketch and Oil paint bring out fur well.

Is my photo uploaded?

No. The drawing is made in your browser and the photo stays on your device.