Akvis Sketch v7.0

Press Release:

Akvis have today released Akvis Sketch v.7.0 for Windows and Macintosh. The software converts photos to realistic pencil and watercolour drawings. The new version offers special effects that make the final photo more impressive. Create a blend of the final drawing and the original image, put an accent to a part of the image by blurring the background in an artistic way, imitate motion, add time machine effect to a picture by swirling the background. The new version is available as a stand-alone application, as well as a plug-in to a photo editor. Upgrade for registered users is free.

Akvis Sketch is an award-winning program for conversion of photos into pencil sketches and watercolour drawings. Make any photo look like a black and white or colour drawing, imitate the technique of graphite or colour pencil, charcoal or watercolour painting.

The program works in an entertaining way. It allows observing the conversion of a photo into a drawing/watercolour in real time and even interrupting the process when the required result is achieved.

Version 7.0 offers special effects that make the final photo more impressive. Create a blend of the final drawing and the original image; imitate motion or add time machine effect by swirling the background; put an accent to certain parts of the image by blurring the rest of it in an artistic way. It proves especially useful when the final drawing contains too many details on the background that divert attention.

These manipulations are easy to perform thanks to the Keep/Drop pencils. To define the effect area, no complicated selection tools are needed. For example, to single out one person at a party, you can draw a rough outline within the figure with the blue pencil, and cut off the background with the green (blur) pencil. When the image is processed, the background will be blurred in a special way – it may look like a slight haze; or be in motion, as if everything around is passing by like on a highway; or the background can swirl like in a sci-fi film. It all depends on the effect settings.

Sketch can be used on many occasions. Surprise your friends and relatives by presenting them their pencil portraits. Make a watercolour drawing out of a photo from your last nature shooting to decorate your room. Convert your own photo into a colour sketch to print on a T-shirt. Create a comic out of your party videos.

The program can be helpful to designers who need to quickly bring images to one style for a web-site or an advertisement booklet.

Akvis Sketch has a simple interface with a few sliders. At first you can process the image with the default settings and then touch up the photo adding colour, or trying different techniques - from pencil to charcoal or watercolour. You can make the hatching denser or finer and change the pitch angle of strokes. After that, you can apply a texture to imitate a painting on a canvas.

Using batch processing in Photoshop or Paint Shop pro (only for the plug-in version) you can even convert a film into a cartoon. 

For a free trial, Akvis offers 10 days of fully functional use. Upgrade for registered users is free. For more details please click here.