How to darken scanned hand drawn lines in Photoshop

[LeahG]

easy step by step guide here:
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Adobe-Photoshop-1028/DARKEN-LINES.htm

From the linked source (follow link for full article)


1. scan your sketches at 300dpi, and as color, even though they're black ink.

2. With your scanned image open in Photoshop, select the Magic Wand tool from the tool box. This tool is the second from the top, in the right-hand column of tools.

3. Click on a tiny portion of one of the skinny lines in the sketch. Then go to the Select pulldown menu, and select Similar. This will make Photoshop select all the skinny lines that are similar to the part of the one you clicked on -- and that will probably be most of your sketch.

4. Now go back to the Select pulldown menu, and select Expand. You probably won't need to make this more than 1 or 2 pixels. When you click OK, your selected lines will all "grow."

5. Go to the Edit pulldown menu, with the lines all still selected, and select Fill. Make sure your foreground color is black, and in the Fill dialog box, make sure you're going to fill with the foreground color. Once you click OK, all your selected lines will "grow" and be filled with black.

6. When you're finished, go back to the Select pulldown menu and select Deselect, and you're all finished!

[Simon]

Yes but in my experience it is better to do this after you have done all your colouring to give it even more impact. It tends to lose weight when you are making the fill selections nullifying the "growth" you previously applied to the stroke. Be carefull of the Expand command as well. You don't want the outlines to be too over- powering. All I do is select a section of the black wherever (it doesn't necessarily have to be the narrowest part) and select Grow and then fill in black but sometimes even this can look too thick and I've discovered for me at least that it is just best to make as good a selection as possible of the outline and just fill in black. Each to their own and it's all about trial and error really. Find what works best for you and your desired effect. Good post though Leah. I'm still waiting for my mate to get his ass into gear for that disc and will try get Illustrator for you as well.

[Kathy]

At home in my class notes,I've got a great procedure for preparing art to be colored in photoshop, that I'll post later...

In the meantime, what I've sometimes done to darken lines in Photoshop is create a Levels adjustment layer, then use sliders to make the white whiter and the black darker. Sometimes you can bring out the texture of the paper this way so it doesn't work well if you've used a rougher paper to draw your image.

Then, with the magic wand, select white, hit delete. This gives you just the black lines. Lock the transparency on this layer, if you like, so you don't accidentally color on it.

Create another layer underneath the black lines, and use this for coloring. Your black lines will always sit on top, and you can be a little less precise without worrying about coloring outside the lines.

[LeahG]

Brill tips again Kathy

Thus far

wishing to make things as easy as possible for myself

I'm trialling Photoshop elements 9 which after a few clicks, seems to do the job re editing of my hand drawn pics.

For the vector, I've purchased that educational one It is very easy to use and I created a vector Mastretta . Program has a blip though and times out and then closes itself. But I can see how I can use this program to make my comic strip creation swifter. For example, I'd like to create my strip characters in various poses using the vector program. Might take a while trying to trace them with digital pen but it will save me time in the long run.

Re illustrator, GIMP and Inkscape etc. These are too long winded for me and too 'technical' so while using kids programs isn't very professional the desired outcome should be as effective as I only want to use digital art (for now) to ensure my nhand drawn pics display properly on all media (web and printed materials) as oppose to wanting to create fab looking digital images. If that makes sense?

I still want my pics to look hand drawn basically. My problem thus far though has been learning about the best way to save and send the files. Clients requests tend to dictate presently what I need to learn, so that's the way I'm going presently.

I am fortunate my clients are very tolerant of my learning curve!

Meanwhile

I need now to learn how to do cut-outs in photoshop (tips please???)

[Kathy]

You mean, like cutting a chunk out of another shape? Or do you mean, like isolating an object from its background? In Photoshop Elements?

[LeahG]

isolating object from it's background.

I did this recently but erm...forgot how (in Pixia)

When I say I'm dizzy I really am

[Simon]

Select the area you want to cut out with the magic wand and Edit...Cut (Ctrl X on your keyboard.) Good on ya for getting the trial, keep going.
Hint of the day: When drawing your picture, always keep the lines closed with no gaps so that you can differentiate fills and the magic wand selection won't seep into areas you don't want it to. If this does happen, simply select the eraser tool and make background colour black and a suitable thickness as per your drawn lines and close the gap.

But all I do is magic wand the background, shift key and keep selecting the small areas it didn't take and keep doing this until you have a selection around your object. Then go to the menu and Select then Grow and just colour it what you want.

[Kathy]

My advice for isolating a object from the background is different. It can be ok to use the magic wand if your background is only white and you have a drawing done in black, but it can be problematic for most anything else.

It's best to make and use a mask. That way you aren't destroying the image (deleting parts of it). With a mask, you can always fix things if you make a mistake.

Leah, are you using Photoshop Elements? I can try to show you how to do it, I use Elements at work....

[LeahG]

I have photoshop elements

[Kathy]

ARRGGG!!! I just wrote a big long post on how to mask in Elements, got interrupted a million times (cuz, ya know, I'm at work 'n stuff) and lost the post!!!

...more later...

[LeahG]