How to Draw on Your Croquis Using Photoshop

It took me awhile after I made my croquis to test out the patterns that I own (and some that I don't yet). Mostly because I wasn't sure how to go about it. But as I became more familiar with Photoshop, it became my personal dressing room.

If you'd like to dress up your croquis, I'll show you how I do it (click on the photos for a larger view).

You'll need Photoshop, or a similar program, like Gimp. You can download a free trial of Photoshop at the Adobe website.

1. Open your croquis image in Photoshop. Double click on the background layer to make it active.



2. Rename the layer "Croquis."



3. With the Croquis still selected (in blue), click on the small square in the bottom right corner of the menu to create a new layer on top of the Croquis layer.



4. Open your internet browser and navigate to the pattern that you'd like to try on. Find the black and white line drawing of the pattern. Take a screen shot by hitting "prt sc" on your keyboard (it's usually above the number pad).

A screenshot creates a copy of whatever you're looking at on screen.



5. Open a new window in Photoshop (File, New), and paste the screenshot into the window (Edit, Paste).



My screenshot shows 5 layers because I'd been working with other patterns. Yours will probably have two – the background layer and the layer that you just pasted.

Using the rectangular selection tool (found in the left menu, second from the top), make a selection around the pattern that you want to test. To copy it, hit Ctrl + C or use the menu options (Edit, Copy).

6. Paste your selection into the window that contains your croquis (Ctrl + V or Edit, Paste). In the layers menu, change the blending option to Multiply.



Changing the blending mode will make the white portions of the layer transparent, so that you're left only with the black outline of the pattern.

7. Press Ctrl+T ( or go to Edit and then Transform) to enlarge the pattern to fit your croquis. Pull on the corner of the box to enlarge the pattern, and hold Shift as you do so to keep the proportions intact (so as you make it wider, you also make it taller).



8. Use the move tool (the arrow in the left menu) to position the pattern on your croquis.



9. What you do next depends on your fitting issues. For me, I need a larger size on bottom than I do on top, and this pattern reflects that issue. You can see how it doesn't quite go past my hip.

To make the adjustment, I make a rectangular selection around the lower portion of the skirt. The selection tool is in the left menu.



Then I cut the skirt (Ctrl + X) and paste it (Ctrl + v). Photoshop pastes it into a new layer, so that it is now independent from the top portion of the pattern.



Then I use the move tool to position it, and press Ctrl + T (or Edit, Transform) to widen the skirt. When I'm widening the pattern, I don't press shift, because that would keep the proportions intact, and I don't want it to get any taller, just wider.



You'll see that the side seams no longer match up.

Here's the tricky part: redrawing the side seam. First, I create a new layer. Then, I select the pen tool (it looks like a pen nib in the left menu) and make sure that it is set to create paths (in the top menu).



Then, I draw a line to blend the side seam of the bodice to the side seam of the skirt. But I don't draw as if it were a pencil. Instead, I set down anchor points by clicking on the mouse along my new imaginary seam (you could use the pencil or brush tool in the left menu and skip this whole pen business; my hand isn't that steady).

I can see the path that I made by clicking on the paths tab in the right side menu.



To draw the seam line, I make sure that the paint brush is selected in the left menu and choose a small brush size (about 4 pixels). Then, I right-click on the path layer and choose stroke. This draws a line along the path that I just created.

10. Once you have the pattern fit to your figure, you can color it in (you can use white if you'd rather not use a color). 

Select your croquis layer by clicking on it so that it is highlighted in blue. Then make a new layer. The layer will be placed on top of it.

Choose the paint brush tool and select a color from the swatches menu. Begin painting. As you paint, you'll color over your croquis. You're not actually erasing the croquis, just coloring over it, just as you would if you had a piece of transparent paper over the croquis.

It helps to zoom in so that you don't color over the pattern's lines.



11. If you redrew a seam line, you'll want to erase the old (you can see in the photo below that the old side seam is still visible). Choose the layer that contains the old seam line (there may be more than one layer, in which case you'll need to do this step twice). Create a mask on top of the layer by clicking on what looks like a camera in the bottom right corner. If you look at your layers palette, you'll see a white box next to your selected layer – that's your mask.



Select the paint brush tool and set your colors to black and white. Choose black and paint over the seam line (make sure that the mask is selected in the layers palette). You're not erasing the seam line; you're hiding it. Whenever you paint on a mask, black hides what is on the current layer; white reveals it. So, if you make a mistake, paint over the area in white to bring the line back again.

When you're finished, your croquis should look like this:

 

I'm not a Photoshop whiz, so there's a chance that I may have made this more complicated than need be.

If you have any questions, let me know, and I'll do my best to answer them.