Summary: This review article lists the top 10 AI tools in 2023 to turn photos into line drawings, including their pricing plans and features.
Best 10 Tools to Convert Photo to Line Drawing (Updated May 2023)
Before we get to know how well AI performs to turn photo into line drawing, let's review the 10 best line art portrait generators. All these photo to line art generators allow you to convert photo to line drawing online for creative work online. This list also contains free tools to produce line art from photo.
| Product Name | Processing Speed | Free or Paid | AI Based | User-Friendliness | Largest Upload File Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VansPortrait | ★★★★☆ | Paid | ✅ | ★★★★☆ | 50MB |
| Rapidresizer | ★★★★☆ | Freemium | ❌ | ★★★☆☆ | 100MB |
| Picsart | ★★★☆☆ | Freemium | ✅ | ★★★★☆ | 100MB |
| Snapstouch | ★★☆☆☆ | Free | ❌ | ★★☆☆☆ | 2MB |
| Media.io | ★★★☆☆ | Free | ❌ | ★★★★☆ | 2GB |
1. VansPortrait
Price: $4.95/100 images/mo; $6.95/200 images/mo; $11.45/500 images/mo
VansPortrait is our pick to be the best tool to turn your photo into line drawing online. It's an AI-powered line art generator that allows you to generate line art in 5 seconds.
Minimalist is a unique feature it has. All you have to do with your image is to upload it to the website and let AI do the rest work. With this minimalist line art generator, you can easily convert photo to line drawing online with the effect you want, quickly and effortlessly.
Another feature is that VansPotrait provides cartoon filters. You can try Avatar, Character or Manga and choose your desired result. It’s a great way to add a touch of personality and creativity to any space or social media profile. With this tool, you can only process 5 images for free. For more image credits, you need a monthly or yearly subscription. More about VansPortrait.
Rating: 10/10 
2. Rapidresizer
Price: $11.99-$17.99/quarter; $39-$119/year
RapidResizer is also a powerful online tool that allows you to easily convert your images into high-quality line art.
Whether you want to create custom designs or turn your favorite photos into black-and-white line drawings, this software offers a range of features and customization options to help you achieve your desired results. It provides 4 different styles including Edges, Thin, Threshold, and Adaptive.
With its intuitive interface and user-friendly design, RapidResizer makes it easy for anyone to create stunning line artwork in just a few simple steps. Whether you’re an artist, designer, or hobbyist, this tool is perfect for adding a unique touch to your creative projects. The only drawback of this tool is that when it's making a sketch from a human portrait, it may result in rough edges, especially on hairs.
Rating: 9/10 
3. Picsart
Price: $13/mo
PicsArt is another popular line drawing generator mobile app that lets you transform your photos into beautiful line drawings in just a few clicks. This app makes it easy for anyone to create stunning line artwork without any prior drawing experience.
This app offers a wide range of customization options, allowing you to adjust the line thickness, color, and style to suit your preferences. You can also add text and other design elements to your drawings to truly make them your own. Whether you’re looking to create unique social media posts or artistic pieces, PicsArt line drawing maker is an excellent tool to have at your disposal.
However, during our use of this tool, we found that the sketch model in the picture above can only be used on PicsArt's mobile app. Its online sketch tool is more like a pure pencil drawing filter.
Rating: 9/10
4. Snapstouch
Price: Free
Snapstouch is an online line drawing generator that allows you to convert your photos into artistic line drawings. This tool uses advanced image processing algorithms to identify the edges and contours of an image and then converts them into a black and white line drawing with various shading options.
You can upload your photos and adjust settings such as line thickness, darkness, and contrast to customize the final output. The tool generates the line drawing in a matter of seconds and provides users with the option to download the final result as a high-resolution PNG or PDF file. Snapstouch is a free and easy-to-use tool for creating stunning line drawings from your favorite photos.
As you can see in the picture below, this tool can't handle the hair well either when processing human portraits.
Rating: 8/10
5. Media.io
Price: Free; $3.95/mo; $6.66/mo
Media.io Photo to Sketch allows you to convert photos into beautiful sketches. Using advanced algorithms, the tool creates a hand-drawn effect by converting the image into lines and shades.
You can upload your photos and choose from various sketch styles such as pencil, pen, charcoal, and more. Additionally, they can adjust settings such as line thickness, brightness, and contrast to customize the final output. This tool generates a sketch in a matter of seconds and provides you with the option to download the final result as a high-resolution PNG or JPG file.
However, one thing you need to know is that although it produces high quality sketches, it do crop your image automatically and inevitably.
Rating: 8/10
6. Lunapic
Price: Free
Lunapic allows you to adjust the outlining effect of your photo to line art online. Note that as the line of the output photo is not significant, the final effect is more like a black-and-white photo instead of a line drawing.
One of the great features of this picture outline maker is that it offers a wide choice of filters, as you can see in the image. And you can create different styles and moods for their pencil sketches by adjusting the pencil width. A thinner pencil width might be suitable for creating delicate and detailed portraits, while a thicker pencil width could be used for a more dramatic and bold effect.
This feature allows you to have greater control over the final output of your pencil sketches and helps you achieve the desired style for your images. From the picture below, you can see that Lunapic's line drawing tool may use the same AI model as Media.io.
Rating: 7/10
7. Vectordad
Price: Free
Vectordad is an exceptional line art portrait generator that effortlessly converts photos into stunning line drawings. Its unique feature lies in its ability to produce highly detailed and intricate line art, capturing the essence of the original image with precision.
This product solves the problem of manually creating line drawings by providing an automated and efficient photo-to-line-drawing conversion tool. It is suitable for artists, designers, and anyone seeking to transform their photos into captivating line art.
Our experience of using Vectordad is remarkable, as it delivers impressive results in a matter of seconds. However, one limitation is that the tool may struggle with complex or low-resolution images, resulting in less accurate line conversions.
Rating: 7/10
8. Super Stencil Maker
Price: Free & Paid
Super Stencil Maker line art generator mainly focuses on your requirement for art, painting, signs, t-shirts, and more. And you can choose from various stencil styles, including graffiti, military, and street art, and adjust settings such as contrast and brightness to further customize the output. The effect it provides is more like watercolor printing.
You can also select the size and format of the stencil, making it suitable for a wide range of applications. The tool also provides you with the option to download the final result as a high-resolution PNG or PDF file.
However, this tool can not perform like the line art generator mentioned above.
Try watching this video, it is very clearly described and he will show you how to use Super Stencil Maker：
Rating: 7/10
9. Tech-lagoon
Price: Free
Tech-lagoon's Image to Edge is an easy-to-use online tool that allows users to transform their favorite images into line art or stencil-like designs.
With the option to adjust line thickness and add text overlays, users can create personalized and unique designs. Image to Edge supports various file formats, making it easy to download and share the final result. Whether for personal or professional use, Image to Edge offers a fun and creative way to bring images to life. It also provides different models, such as Fine pen, Pencil, and Smooth pen.
If you don’t want to lose any details of your photo when you convert image to line art online, you may choose one line portrait generator which could process photo to line art online with thinner lines to make the drawing vivid. Convert Image is the one that can meet your requirement. But one limitation of this photo to line drawing conversion tool is its dependency on strong and well-defined edges in the original image.
Rating: 7/10
10. AI Draw
Price: Free
AI Draw is another online photo to line drawing app that allows you to change the colors of the photo to line art online. The effect it can achieve is creative and unique with a curve line. It is very easy to use and only requires three steps. Click Get Started, upload an image, and wait for the AI drawing to begin.
The most amazing feature of this tool is that you can see the whole process of the AI converting your image into a line drawing. If you want to see what will happen after you upload an image, try this interesting tool now.
From our experience of AI Draw, we have to tell you that this is not actually a photo to line art converter but a conceptual line art creator instead, It means the tool will analyze your original photo and draw it with lines.
Rating: 7/10
Convert Photo to Line Drawing Online Free with VansPortrait
There are many tools above, but they have different applications. If you simply want a line drawing effect, let's take a good look at the AI line drawing generator VansPortrait. If you like, you can try to turn photos into line drawing online for free. And you will find that those line drawing photos generated are quite impressive.
How does AI turn photo into line drawing?
Based on deep learning, an AI line art generator like VansPortrait would have been trained on millions of images for generating accurate and satisfactory results before it gets access to the market. Once you upload an image to VansPortrait, AI would smartly analyze the original image and automatically convert photo into line drawing.
How to turn photo into line drawing online with VansPortrait?
Step 1: Just open the official page and upload an image.
Step 2: Choose the effects you want and convert. When you are at the step, you'll need to decide what output you want it to be like, prefer cartoon effect or sketch effect. If you choose to sketch and there are 2 presets available, pick the one you need.
Step 3: Download the image. As you can see here, the first output is made by the default mode, while the second one is created by sketch mode, you can turn photo into line drawing online free with this tool, and now there is a questionnaire to get free points. Give it a try.
Impressive Line Art from Photo
Having used these tools, we would like to show you the results of image manipulation by users using these tools.
1. Cat line drawing photos
Can you imagine this cat line drawing was made in just about 30 seconds? Though it’s not perfect, let’s say, the cat’s whisker and left ear are not perfectly handled. But look at the beautiful eyes. AI portrait online has enhanced the overall effects automatically.
The next cat line drawing is more impressive. You can look at the shape which is clearly outlined.
2. Rose line drawing
3. Butterfly line drawing
4. Sunflower line drawing
Final Thought
Thanks to AI technology advances, line drawing, the primary art technique, can be accessible to almost everyone. You need to upload a photo you like and then AI portrait generators will magically transform it into line art. Compared with traditional free photo to sketch converters, an AI tool is more accurate in results due to its advanced trained algorithms. Apart from VansPortrait, there are also many excellent choices listed for you. Just pick one line portrait generator to turn your profile on Facebook or Pinterest into a line drawing. Don’t forget to come back and share your experience in the comment below.
If you are interested in 60 fps videos, check another article: AI Frame Interpolation Can Convert Videos to 60fps.
FAQ
What can you do with line drawings, sketches, or stencils generated by AI?
With the black and white line drawing, you can share the AI-generated line drawing on Facebook or Twitter to impress your audience. Besides, you can also colorize them using the AI colorization tools I introduced previously before using them for clothes, fabrics, stainless glass, T-shirt designs, or printing.
Is there any software to turn photo into line drawing online free?
AKVIS Draw offers you a software solution to convert images to line art online which looks realistic. You have to download and install this line art generator before use. By using this line art portrait generator, you can apply various colors to the drawing.
Dear Rose Salla,
I am a engineer by training and a qualified TCM practioner for the last 14 years. I am looking for a pp that can sketch the shape and features of the ear drawn with the delineated region or point for the ear acupuncture. I am trying to setup a overlay template of this and and the real life ear super imposed through either a ipad pro or a handphone. In this way the physician can see very clearly the the acupoint on the real life subject. Let me know if there is AI app out there right now.
Wow, AI technology is amazing!
Hi Rose, thanks for this article! But do I need to have any special skills or knowledge to use this tool?
Hi, thanks for your support! Actually, you do not need any special skills or knowledge to use AI Portraits Online. It’s very user-friendly and anyone can use it with ease.
Thanks for sharing these excellent tools! This helps me a lot in searching for a suitable photo-to-line drawing tool.
Hi Rose, my name is Chaser. I have a little suggestion for your article. Incorporating a tutorial video can prove to be immensely beneficial for individuals with a preference for visual learning, particularly those who are novice users of AI tools. By doing so, it is possible to augment the readers’ comprehension and overall experience pertaining to the subject matter at hand.