FotoSketcher is a 100% free program for Windows which converts your digital photos into art automatically and in just a few mouse clicks. Over 20 different styles are available from pencil sketches to watercolor or oil paintings, pen & ink drawings and cartoons.

You can also improve your original photos with simple tools (enhance contrast, sharpen, simplify image, increase luminosity, color saturation etc...) and add simple or realistic frames and text.

FotoSketcher is completely free (even for commercial use, if you wish to sell your pictures) and does not contain any adware, spyware or virus. It runs on Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and 7 (sorry, no Mac version available).

I have created FotoSketcher as a fun project and I hope that you will enjoy using it.

Features

  • 100% free
  • over 20 effects
  • no artistic skills needed
  • over 5 million downloads
  • available in 19 different languages

What's New

New Gouache Painting effect

A new Gouache Painting effect joins the Painting category. Gouache sits somewhere between water color and oil paint: thick, opaque, with a matte finish and visible brushstrokes.

Watermark and logo tool

The "Add text" window has been expanded into "Add text/watermark". You can now load any image file (PNG with transparency, JPG, or other formats) and place it over your picture as a watermark or logo. Drag to move, drag a corner to resize, and use the floating opacity slider to control transparency. Transparent borders are cropped automatically on load, and the watermark works in scripts too.

2 new embedded scripts

Two new ready-made scripts are included, both using the new Gouache Painting effect. Open the Script Editor to try them out or adapt them to your own style.

Crosshatch improvement

The Crosshatch effect now supports the "do not erase background" toggle. This means you can draw crosshatch lines over any existing painting or drawing, combining two effects in two quick steps.

Keyboard navigation for better accessibility

Tab and Shift+Tab now cycle through controls in reading order, with a blue ring highlighting the selected item. Enter activates it, and inside effect categories the arrow keys browse effects directly.

Watercolour performance

The Watercolour effect has received a significant speed improvement. A bug that could cause issues on certain CPU configurations (Intel Xeon for instance) has also been fixed.

Before/after divider

The split-view divider has been reworked. It no longer drifts off the image, stays on the same spot when you zoom, and is correctly clamped when scrolled. It had always been a bit "iffy", I hope it behaves now.

Light/dark themes

The light theme has been refined for better contrast and legibility, and some remaining light/dark inconsistencies have been fixed throughout the interface.

Other improvements

  • Parameters files saved with older versions of FotoSketcher are now loaded correctly.
  • Watermarks are downscaled using the best possible quality for cleaner edges at small sizes.
  • A little easter egg: a gentle steam animation appears on the support button's coffee cup when the mouse hovers over the icon.
  • In the Script Editor window, the 3D cube animation has been optimized to consume very little CPU resource.
  • A portable version for Windows (no setup needed) is now available for download in .zip format.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed Escape and Enter not working correctly in some in-app windows.
  • Fixed a crash in the Script Editor when the application zoom level was set below 100%.
  • Fixed the right-click menu in the history gallery appearing in the wrong position at non-default zoom levels.
  • Fixed taskbar flickering with an auto-hidden taskbar at fractional zoom (typically 125%).
  • Fixed the Script Editor memo splitting its background into two colors.
  • Brushstrokes frame and other minor corrections.
  • macOS build updated with interface layout improvements.

FotoSketcher Studio 4.40

The two big additions in this release are the Crosshatch effect and Light mode.

Crosshatch is a new Pencil Sketch effect that recreates the drawing technique of building up tone with overlapping sets of parallel lines. It works especially well on portraits and architectural photos where you want that hand-drawn, pencil-on-paper feel.

Light mode adds a light theme alongside the existing dark one. You can switch between them at any time, and FotoSketcher now remembers your choice (along with your language setting) between sessions, so it starts up the way you left it.

The application size has also been drastically reduced on both Windows and macOS, making for a lighter download and a smaller footprint on your machine.

New LUTs effect

In the Photo Lab category you will find a new LUTs (Lookup Tables) effect for custom colour grading. It comes with 18 presets built right into the application (Cinematic, Kodachrome, Golden hour, Portrait and more), each with a live preview so you can see the look before applying it. Right-click the preview to compare with your original image. And if you have your own .cube files, you can load those from disk too.

New "Stylize" category

I have added a brand-new Stylize category with four new effects. Three of them (Mosaic, Circles and Triangles) are built on the same space-filling idea, turning your photo into tiled mosaics, clusters of circles, or a low-poly triangle look. The fourth, Cartoon, is a bit different: it gives a clean graphic style with defined lines and solid colours. A little tip - set the colour intensity to 0 and Cartoon draws a pure outline drawing with no fill. Combined with the "Do not erase background" option, you can run it on top of any other effect to add crisp contours in two quick steps.

Auto-Enhance and Full Reset

Two small but handy additions. Auto-Enhance (just press E) tries to optimise your source photo - exposure, white balance, local contrast - for a 'dehazed', natural-looking starting point. And Full Reset clears everything back to a clean slate in one step (working image, history, LUT, script, brushes and sliders) without having to close and reopen the program. Press Ctrl+Shift+N, or right-click the exit button.

Scripts

The script engine has been updated to support all the new effects, with a few new commands and improved help. If you would like some inspiration, the recent scripting tutorial on this blog walks through several ready-made example scripts.

The usual improvements

The interface now uses new colour accents for better readability, the history gallery has had a few tweaks, and you can now open .webp images directly. On top of that, this release includes some performance improvements and a good number of bug fixes.