How to Clean a Scanned Lineart

Do you have piles and piles of pencil or pen drawings that you would really love to learn how to color on the computer? Only to have your colors destroy the lines?

If so, watch this video to learn how to set up a picture for coloring.

I used Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0, but the method should work on most photoshop programs. I'm not sure how much it costs because mine came with my Bamboo Fun Tablet.

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[watchmyshoes22]

You explained the exact opposite of what I wanted to do

[DreamPuddle21]

@watchmyshoes22 So you'd like to add a BG to a picture? :) All you'd need to do is make a new white layer under your picture and merge the two. Or, if you'd like to make a picture look fuzzy or dirty, mess around with the filters. I think there is one that adds little grains and such.

[DreamPuddle21]

@watchmyshoes22 So you'd like to add a BG to a picture? :) All you'd need to do is make a new white layer under your picture and merge the two. Or, if you'd like to make a picture look fuzzy or dirty, mess around with the filters. I think there is one that adds little grains and such.

[watchmyshoes22]

@DreamPuddle21 omg it worked!!!

[DreamPuddle21]

@watchmyshoes22  :)

[nfarnham2008]

Question, I have a LOT of sketches and pencil drawings. I want to clean them up and make nice, dark, clean line art. How would I do that? I have photoshop and no tablet.

[DreamPuddle21]

@nfarnham2008 If they are fairly clean sketches, you should be able to follow the steps in the video. You could even ink them by hand with a pen or marker, then scan them in and follow the steps.

If you'd rather try and do it on the computer, the easiest way other than my method would be to trace everything again on a new layer. Since you don't have a tablet, the pen tool would be your best option. If your version of Photoshop doesn't have it, you can download GIMP for free (opensource).

[BulletFoxx]

ahhh! oh my gosh thank you so much!!! :D

[ZokumaIzuka]

Better idea... use gimp, select the color you want in the picture, revert the selection, hit delete.. then re-revert the selection, copy, new layer, paste, soften the edges with the blur tool. Tada

[dooshahn]

@nfarnham2008

I've forgotten to say, that I assume you are starting with line art that has adjusted contrast. So the lines are black not gray-ish and the background is white. (Just wanted to mention that.)

[dooshahn]

@nfarnham2008

*continue*

Result: vector masked solid color layer (now you can remove the original layer)

If you want to make touch-ups to it:

Select that vector mask of that layer (in Layers panel) and use pen tools or direct/path selection tool

OR

Right click on layer's name and click Rasterize layer. Now you can use brush and eraser.

And also you can use lasso to select area of that layer and then use Filter>Noise>Median to smooth it a little bit

[dooshahn]

@nfarnham2008

Starting with b&w line art

Open Channels panel hold CTRL and click on RGB thumbnail (it will load it as selection)

Go to menu Select>Inverse (because now you have white selected and you need black)

Open Paths panel > click on the top right menu, select Make Work Path and set tolerance (experiment with the value) it will create path (select that path if it's not)

Go to menu Layer>New Fill Layer>Solid Color click OK then choose black color

Deselect path in Paths panel

*continue*

[dooshahn]

Or you can set blend mode to "multiply" for the top line art layer (in layers panel) so you don't need to use magic wand to remove white from it.

[LadyAutocon]

OMG!!! THANK YOU!!!!! -hugs you tight- I just got PSE 10 and I had no clue how to do any of this now I can do layers!!! >W<

[DEKU97]

thank you soooooo much :D

[themykkee3]

thnx and congrats for being the firts person to show me what im looking for

[ninchick01]

Thank you so much!