The Wall Street Journal developed a unique treatment for handling photographs on its front page, which has now taken on a life of its own. The look, developed by former art director Kevin Sprouls, is known at the WSJ as a “hedcut.”
A lay person might think a hedcut is a photograph that has been manipulated in some mysterious way; a graphics person might think it is done using a scratchboard technique or a customized Photoshop filter. In reality, hedcuts are hand drawn by a rather labor intensive process that is explained in this link: http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/journal/inside.htm. (Keep in mind that the linked article applies to a final piece measuring one inch wide by one and a half inches tall. For a physically larger piece, you would need to make adjustments.)
To date, I have found no Photoshop filter that adequately recreates the hedcut’s pointillist look. The Andromeda Cutline filter gets in the general ballpark, and Flaming Pear India Ink gets a little closer (with a LOT of trial and error). If you are pressed for time or you need to illustrate a lot of people with the WSJ look, these products may be your only choice. The only problem is that these filters will produce wildly different effects unless the original photographs were shot under precisely the same conditions. And the result may remind no one of the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
The reason I am so absorbed with this topic is because an associate recently asked me to create a hedcut of someone at a client meeting where she was working. ASAP. I was emailed a photograph of the attendee and given a little more than two hours to get it done. After spending half an hour with the Cutline filter and other approaches, I wasn’t satisfied. So I created a hybrid Photoshop/manual approach. Here is the approach I used, developing the technique as I went: :
Click the image above for larger view
Preparing the photo: Convert the photo to grayscale if it is in color. Use “Image/Adjustments/Levels” to increase the contrast. This will help you determine where dark, mid-range, and light areas are.
Setting up the Photoshop file: Create a new layer above the photographic image for the dots and dashes (I just used dots). You will need to experiment to find the right line weight and dot width. For a 5×7” @ 300 dpi piece, I used a size 5 hard edge brush. You will also need to use a color that is easily seen on top of the target photograph, like red or bright green. Create a layer that is filled with just white and place this below the photograph. This white layer is for viewing your dots and dash work when you turn off the photo layer.
Start the rendering: Draw the outline of the face, hair and visible clothes. Start stippling. The Journal’s philosophy is to not go solid black in filling areas. Hair is treated with lines and dots, and facial features are treated with dots or dashes only. I found it best to start by using line work to render the eyes, eyebrows, and basic shape of the nose and mouth.
Use tightly placed dots to render features like the lines in the forehead, dimples, etc. You are almost drawing a line with the dots. Then use somewhat looser dots to establish shadows and darker areas of the face: under the nose, above the eyelids, below the eye, etc. At this point, if you temporarily turn off the photograph layer and view your stippling against the white layer, the person’s likeness should be pretty apparent.
Using even looser dots, establish the mid-range areas. When doing this, try to follow the contours of the subjects face. After you are done with the mid-tones, fill in light areas with your most loosely spaced dots. These dots are just a light fill and don’t have to follow the persons facial contours.
Finally, use crosshatching to fill in dark clothing or stippling for light clothing. When all your stippling is done, hold down the CTRL (PC) or Command key (Mac) and click on your dot dash layer to select it. Then, create a new layer and, with the dots and dashes still selected, fill the selection with black or dark grey.
Note: The WSJ closely crops its pictures very tightly and very often crops a woman’s hair on the sides and top. If you are holding true to “The Look” this might be a consideration.
