Embodiments herein include a method, service, apparatus, etc., that automatically generates a coloring book image that includes line drawings defining a small number of color coherent, clearly discriminated, closed regions while preserving the basic semantic properties of the original image. These regions hence can be filled in with colored inks, crayons, paints, etc. The method inputs a color image that can be a photograph, scanned image, etc. The method begins by transforming the color image into a chrominance-luminance space and then performs low pass filtering on the color image that preserves the chrominance edges of the features within the color image. Next, the method segments the color image into the features based on locations of the chrominance edges of the features. Then, the method can merge selected features into other features. After performing any merging, the method identifies the remaining chrominance edges of the features within the image and adds lines along the remaining chrominance edges to form outlines of the features. Then, the method automatically filters out all other data from the image to leave only the outlines and produce a revised image consisting of just the outlines. The revised image of just outlines is then output to the user.