|
This part of the tutorial will show you how to set up a line art using Photoshop after you scan it in, so that it will
look nice and clean and sharp, even though it's just a simple pencil sketch like this one. Since I'm using Windows,
the Photoshop shortcuts provided here only work in Windows; however, you should be able to find
the original commands in the Mac version of Photoshop quite easily ^^ This is, by no means,
the only way to set up a line art~~ It's just how I usually do it -- there sure are some other (and better) ways to
make your line art look cleaner and ready to be colored~~ I hope you will find it useful ^^
BTW~ For scanning,
it's best to scan in a moderately high resolution (about 200-250 dpi -- I scan at 300dpi) because it allows you to
add intricate details -- plus the drawing looks a lot better when you're done, because you
can then shrink it.
 |  | It is a lot easier if you use blue pencil for sketching, as after you retrace the sketch
using pencil or pen and scanning the pic in, the blue lines can be magically eliminated in seconds XD~
This is how the original pic, sketched with blue pencil and retraced with 2B pencil, looks like -- all
blue lines and grey spots and smudges O_o;;;;
| |
 | | Click on Channels, then activate the Blue channel by clicking on it. This will make all the blue lines disappear.
Press Ctrl + A to select all, Ctrl + C to copy, click on the RGB channel, and press Ctrl + V to paste
the image without the blue lines on it. Press Ctrl + Shift + E to flatten the image.
Now all the blue lines are permanently gone ^.~
| |
 | | Press Ctrl + Shift + L to Auto Levels the image, and Ctrl + Shift + F to fade it;
adjust the amount of fading to suit your need and taste. The important thing is to make sure that the lines
don't look too rough, have jagged edges, or broken. Afterwards go to Alt + I --> A --> C to adjust the brightness
and/or contrast.
| |
 | | Eliminate the rest of the grey spots and smudges by using the Paintbrush tool. By this time you would usually only
have very little amount (or even none at all) of dirt or smudge that you've got to clean up. Make sure the white
parts are *really* white, otherwise you will have a lot of difficulties with the next steps ^^;;;;
| |
 | | Now go to Channels and click on "Load channel as selection"; this will select anything that's *not* white
on the image. Right click on the background layer, choose "Duplicate layer...", then activate the background copy layer that resulted
and hit Del to eliminate all the whites in that layer.
| |
 | | Press Ctrl + D to deselect, activate the original background,
press Alt + E --> L and fill the background with white. Now you have a layer
that only contains lines upon a white background. Tick the "Preserve transparency" box,
so that you can change the color of the lines to suit your taste by filling the layer.
| |
 | | Now that the transparency is protected, you can either fill or paintbrush the layer -- I prefer filling, since it's much faster.
Pick a foreground color (I usually pick a reddish brown shade for the lines), hit Alt + E --> L and fill the layer
with the foreground color. Voila! Your line art is ready XD~
|
Now you are ready to color~ You can do so by either coloring on the background or by
adding layers below the lines layer, so that your lines show through instead of
being painted over.
At this point, I usually save the file as a PSD (Photoshop format) file, close the file and Photoshop, then open Painter and load the file for coloring purposes.
|
