Fotosketcher Turns Photos into "Works of Art"

When I worked as Technology Coordinator for the legacy Gull Lake School Division, I always carried a Leatherman tool on my belt because I never knew when I might briefly need to enlist the services of a screwdriver, pliers or a knife.  It served me well, but I also always a carried full toolkit in my car for more extended work.  Sometimes you just need a real screwdriver.

The same is true with software.  While powerful do-it-all software suites have their place, there is no denying the value of a software tool that was designed to do one job and do it well.  That's the case with Fotosketcher, a free image altering tool designed specifically to convert regular digital photographs into images that look like they were drawn, sketched, or painted.

To begin using Fotosketcher, the user loads the image to be converted.  From there, she selects the type of art work she would like to imitate: pencil sketch, pen and ink drawing, water colour, oil painting, or "dot" painting.  The user can accept the default settings for the effect,  or she can exercise control over a number of variables to fine-tune the effect.

The interface is fairly simple, consisting of a split screen (original on the left, and result on the right) and a pop-up dialogue for adjusting settings.  If the user is dissatisfied with the resulting image, she can easily undo the process, adjust the dialogue sliders and reprocess the photo.

Fotosketcher also includes a batch processing mode for converting multiple pictures at one time.

For those who might want to take Fotosketcher with them, there is also a portable version which can be run from any location without installation.  So teachers who want to have students experiment with Fotosketcher can throw the portable version on a network share and run it from there or have students copy it to the Savespace on their local hard drives.  (Just have them remove it when they are done.)  The portable version can also be run from a USB thumb drive or portable hard drive plugged into any Windows computer.

While much of what Fotosketcher does can be accomplished with artistic filters buried deep within the interface of a general purpose image editor like The GIMP or Photoshop, the sheer simplicity, power and single-mindedness of this program make it a compelling choice.