how to turn a photo into a sketch

Nope - you need something like Photoshop Elements or Corel Painter Essentials 4 to do pixel editing like that.

You also may give "ToonIt! For Aperture" a try. That has quite a few nice and easy to use Graphics Effects. http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/aperture/toonitforaperture.html?cmp

You can access this downloads page also directly from the main Aperture menu:

Aperture -> Aperture Plug-Ins

Regards

Léonie

One more thing you might try: All standard quartz filters are available as Automator actions, and if you create an Automator service that uses this actions you can activate them from the Aperture Services menu.

I created four sample workflows to create sketch effects and put them on my website for download:

http://dreschler-fischer.de/FAQ/Scripts_Services

Here is an example for the color pencil effect:

The service does the following:

• Copy the master image file to the Desktop
• apply the filter selected in the selector in the "Apply Quartz Composition Filter.." action
• Reimport the modified image into Aperture into a new project.

You may create your own quarzt filter services by selecting a different filter in the "Apply Quartz Composition Filter.." action.

To use the service, select an image, then go to the Aperture menu -> Services and select the service.

And here a sample workflow for the pop art quartzs filter:

Regards

Léonie

Leonie,

Cool - I never thought of that - I'll give it a try. If it works I'll have a beer on your behalf.... 😁

Enjoy! and you great Australian beer too.

Happy New Year!

Léonie