This simple tutorial will show you how to convert your photos to cartoon or sketch images in Ubuntu Linux using a simple tool XnSketch.

XnSketch is a very small tool that allows you to turn your photos into cartoon or sketch images. It works on Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Apple and Android devices.

Features:

• 18 different effects (black strokes, white strokes, pastel, pencil sketch, colored sketch, …)
• Edge strength, and opacity adjustement
• Contrast, brightness, saturation adjustement
• Save or share the result to Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, Imgur, Thmblr, ImageShack, Yfrog, GlowFoto, TwitPic, and Email.

Install XnSketch

First download the package:

XnSketch for Windows 32-bit | Windows 64-bit

XnSketch for Ubuntu Linux

For Ubuntu users, decompress the package and copy and paste the result folder into /opt/ folder once downloaded. To do so, press Alt+F2 on your keyboard and type in gksudo nautilus to open file browser with root privilege.

Then drag and drop the extract folder from your ~/Downloads folder to /opt/:

Finally follow below steps to create a launcher for this tool:

1.) Press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run below commands to install required package:

sudo apt-get install gnome-panel --no-install-recommends

2.) Run command to bring up Create Launcher dialog.

sudo gnome-desktop-item-edit /usr/share/applications/ --create-new

In next window type following:

name = XnSketch
command = /opt/XnSketch/xnsketch.sh
select an icon from /opt/XnSketch/xnsketch.png

Once done, click Ok and you’ll see the XnSketch from the Unity Dash home.