In this tutorial, I will show you how the create a stylized illustrated look from a photograph. The best part is that it requires no artistic ability! You can do this to any photo and pretty much any subject, but I think it works best with people.

Kyle Pero has worked in the creative fields for many years now. With a background in photography and graphic design he naturally became a Photoshop whiz. Now he works in advertising doing photographic retouching, but also does freelance design and illustration work.

You can see a Before/After below (just roll over the image once it's all loaded in). I bought my image from iStockPhoto - here's the item (Note if you download the sample PSD file from PSDTUTS Plus, the image has a watermark over it, so you'll need to purchase it and swap it in).

Create a new Solid Color Adjustment layer and fill it with White. Above that layer, create a new blank
layer by hitting the New Layer Button at the bottom of the layer palette. Name that layer "Basic Shapes."
Now turn both of those layers off.

With the Pen Tool selected, simply click anywhere you would like to start then continue to click and drag
to trace the part you are working on with the path. To make it look more like a sketch, we are going to use
a lot of small paths rather than trace the whole thing with one long path. When you come to a place where
you think the path should end, hold down the Cmd (or Ctrl) key ,and click anywhere off the path. That
will deselect it and now you are free to create another one. Keep doing this until all of your basic shapes
are traced. Here are a few shots of how I traced my image: