Question about coloring pics. Not car related.

[bLaH1031]

Hey guys, I'm working on a sketch and was wondering how I would go about coloring it in photoshop. Most, if not all comics today are scanned in and colored and I was wondering how they do it? Here's the pic...

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid54/p9ca321a060f5fa92a96d37e820e897ca/fc83abd4.jpg

Obviously it's far from done still, it's just to give an idea. I was thinking of inking it when I'm done with the pencils to give it more of a sharp look. After scanning it in I'm clueless. If all the lines are closed would the paint bucket tool work to get the primary colors in? Any pointers? Thanks...

[redcellyinfl]

yea the paint bucket tool will work if the lines are compltely closed in.. but thats gonna make it really hard on u because ur gonna have to basically Re-sketch the whole drawing to make sure that the lines are closed in.. there has to be another way.. not that i know of it though.. heh

[Blue Bomber]

Definitely ink it. It will make coloring much easier. You should also adjust the Levels to eliminate any smudges or marks that may show up from scanning.

When you fill in the spaces, make sure you turn up the Paint Bucket's Tolerance. This will eliminate creating white lines between the drawn lines and the color. The higher the number, the more colors the Paint Bucket will cover over (there will always be gray in between the white and black to make the lines look smooth). It will take some trial and error before you get it perfected (no more white lines, but not covering up the black lines).

You can also use the Lasso tool to constrain the color to one area instead of closing up every area.

[bLaH1031]

Great tips, thanks guys I really appreciate it :) If it's not half bad I'll post the finished pic... hahaha

[Redline]

Here is how you color hand-drawn line art in photoshop.

1. Scan the Drawing

2. Open it up in Photoshop.

3. Make sure the channels box is open and click on each channel. While on each channel, look for the one that has the most contrast. (line art should be black and the bg should be white) When you find the best one, Drag it to the "new channel" icon (its in the bottom right corner of that toolbox) and then it should say something like "alpha 1".

4. Adjust the contrast using levels or curves to get the line art as crisp as you want it. (your still in the alpha channel) You can also erase any unnecessary lines at this point.

5. Do a CTRL-I to invert the colors. the BG should now be black and the lines white. This is your line art selection. Its saved as an alpha channel if you ever need it.

6. CTRL-Click this alpha channel and it should make a selection of the line art. Now go back to the RGB channel by just clicking on it normally.

7. Back to the RGB channel? Selection of the line art still there? Good. Now Create a new layer in the layers panel and fill that selection with black (or whatever color you want the line art to be... brown is nice for some styles).

8. Now you can CTRL-D to get rid of the "marching ants" and then fill the background layer with white.

9. Now you should have 2 layers. The top layer with your line art, and the BG layer with nothing but white. You can now paint on the BG layer or create layers in between to color your drawing. Your line art will never get messed up because its on its own layer and you wont have those ugly empty pixels from bad selections.

I did this in the same process except for the fact that I retraced my lineart in illustrator to get cleaner/resizeable lineart. :)

http://www.taeunproductions.com/art/art_younghero.jpg

[bLaH1031]

:eek: Whoa.... I'll be happy if mine comes out even half as good as that. That's unbelievable. Thanks for the instructions though. Hopefully my photoshop newbness will prevail.. hahaha

[Mistrimeat]

This started out as a pencil sketch scanned into PS and cleaned up. I actually used Painter to make it look like watercolor, but it's basically the same process as Redline stated.

http://www.digitaldistortion.com/pix/truck.jpg

[Redline]

Originally posted by Mistrimeat
This started out as a pencil sketch scanned into PS and cleaned up. I actually used Painter to make it look like watercolor, but it's basically the same process as Redline stated.

http://www.digitaldistortion.com/pix/truck.jpg

I love painter! But its freakin hard to figure out.

[Blue Bomber]

Another variation on Redline's method is to scan the image in, adjust the levels to remove everything except the lines, then create a new layer. Change the Blending Mode on the new layer to Darken, then just color the area with the Paintbrush tool. It will draw the color you choose, but won't draw over the lines. You can do anything to this layer that you can do with a regular layer (cut, copy, paste, smudge, filters, etc.), but be careful if you use multiple layers. If you color over a color on a previous layer, they will overlay each other (red + blue = purple, etc.).

For extra safety, you might want to lock the original layer with the drawing.

[bLaH1031]

These tips are great guys, thanks again. Last night I finished inking it and I'm pretty happy with the way it came out so today I can get it scanned and colored.

Mistri that pic is awesome, the water color effect looks great :thumbup:

[bLaH1031]

Well I thought I'd post some of my progress because without your guys help I would've never figured this out. So a HUGE thanks again for helping me.

Alright on to the pics...

Here it is all inked and cleaned up in photoshop..
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid55/p9c78f2470b6a3eb6fbee92f33adcdad3/fc822d85.jpg

And here it is with just it's primary colors on...
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid55/p2bc89ec87a00c151c1aaf9f114783761/fc8225b2.jpg

I'm really hoping tomm I can finish it with adding some light and shadow to it. I'll post that as soon as it's done :)

[Blue Bomber]

Nice! :thumbup:

[CelicaCat]

Originally posted by bLaH1031

Here it is all inked and cleaned up in photoshop..
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid55/p9c78f2470b6a3eb6fbee92f33adcdad3/fc822d85.jpg

And here it is with just it's primary colors on...
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid55/p2bc89ec87a00c151c1aaf9f114783761/fc8225b2.jpg

I'm really hoping tomm I can finish it with adding some light and shadow to it. I'll post that as soon as it's done :)

That looks great :thumbup: Can't wait to see it when it's all done!

[Redline]

Looks good! cant wait to see the shaded version. :) I have an awesome technique for shading characters (more anime style) in photoshop, but it requires understanding of the pen tool. It also requires you to separate each of your flat colors onto its own layer. But it speeds up the shading process by a lot.

[bLaH1031]

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid55/p9f09bfd16965cf05a1a9ba2ad78c79ab/fc80f5dc.jpg

Well there's the final version. For my first try I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out but I would also like to see my future work get alot better.

I really think I owe it to myself to look into the pen technique... lol. I spent ALOT of time shading this with the polygonal lasso and the brightness/contrast tool. Which worked but I'm sure theres an easier way which would also make it look nicer.

Hope you all enjoy...

[Redline]

looks good. Final fantasy 8 right? (didnt like that one.. hehe)

[bLaH1031]

lol.. same here. I never finished it. Too much with the summons. It is Squall but it's the Kingdom Hearts rendition of him. And right now KH owns me.. haha :)