Photoshop Question

I have very nearly zero knowledge of Photoshop and digital graphics in general, so excuse me for what is almost certainly going to be a dumb question.

Does PS elements have a feature to trace around parts of a scanned in picture to make a line drawing of it? IE: could I use it to make a line transfer of a scan of original engraving (I'm trying to practice 18th and 19th Century designs, not ripping of current engravers)

I've looked at the literature and can't tell one way or another. I'm sure it's just because I don't yet have enough of that vocabulary to tell. If not PS E then what program would be good for that?


My drawing is still crap so I was thinking this was a way to help develop the engraving skills for those historic styles while my ability to draw in that style also develops.

Not sure, but i think PS elements doesnt have that kind of feature. Adobe illustrator has trace function that will make somekind of vector (line) file from picture.

Supercracker, this may not be what you are looking for but PS does have this feature, to convert photos, to pencil drawings, I don't know about just tracing a line drawing though,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K43-_zhQZiM&feature=player_detailpage


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLgsSN2MsMo&feature=player_detailpage

also Gimp and it is a free program you can down load, there are tutorials on you tube about it, they work well for that purpose,
Illustrator has a filter called (photocopy) and does a similar thing converting images, you just have to play with it to see what works, you can trace the lines with illustrator but as far as I know( and is not much)you have to go over them your self line by line ,
some times is easier and faster to just trace the image with tracing paper and pencil
hope this helps,

Richard.

You dont need to manually trace in illustrator.
If you open normal jpeg file in illustrator you get "live trace" button on upper part of window. Next to this is very thin button with tiny triangle on it that let you go to trace options where you can adjust tracing parameters. This live trace works better with some pictures than others, but it is really useful if you want to vectorise a photo etc. I use it very much my self when making vector files to be used on my vinyl cutter/plotter.

Edit:
Just need to ad that jpeg file need to be opened using "Place" option in "file" drop down menu to get that live trace option available.