I'm trying to find the easiest way to emulate pencil blending in Photoshop. While there are a lot of tutorials and methods for smooth digital blending, I would like to maintain the grainy textured blending of real media.
One app that does this well is Artrage. The blender tool blends tone like a frosted blur, maintaining the textured finish of graphite on paper. The downside is that Artrage does not support 16-bit imagery ATOW. See image:
I have tried to mimic this tool in Photoshop with the Mixer brush tool and various settings. Unfortunately, my attempts end up looking smudgy and lose a lot of texture. Also, to get anything like a realistic blend, I have to draw very carefully.
Is there an effective way to simulate realistic pencil blending with texture in Photoshop?
Please Note: I want to avoid adding texture layer overlays to my drawing. Any alternate use of the Mixer Brush or brush presets are welcome!