Scanning/Coloring Line Art

[Josh1031]

Any tips for scanning and coloring line art? I’ve been experimenting and was wondering what you guys recommend. Thanks.

[kozik]

1. if coloring it in photoshop turn 'anti-alias' OFF
2. scan it at 100% 300 DPI
3. scan as a greyscale. then clean it up with the contrast/brightness controls. or 'Threshold it'


if you want to turn it into an illustrator file, whole different deal......

[MaximumFluoride]

I have after like 8 years of coloring shit in Photoshop devised a great and elaborate scheme to scan and color black line art . It's so convoluted it would be difficult to explain quickly.

So, Later tonight after I get home, I will go into my method in detail here. I'm sure there is an easier way but my way yeilds excellent results. Good enough results that i can't be bothered to learn a new way.

That is if your looking to color your work in photoshop.

If you want to do it in illustrator...ask Ewing. His way is good.

[GIGART]

I scan in my black line work into photoshop...I use levels and make the image as black and white as possible. Next I guassian blur the line art...enough to blur, but not too much to lose detail. Then I go back to levels again and make as black and white again..this brings in all the imperfections...then I make the image a bit map tiff and save. I open that file up in Streamline, convert it and save the art as an illustrator file. Then you can open that up in Illustrator or FreeHand and you have a vector file of your art. You can tighten up the curves, etc. if you want, and start filling it will colors...That is pretty much what I do to all my work and I get some really clean lines...I work in FreeHand. Thank You.

[standard]

my scanner has the option of scanning as "line art". all that means is it scans it as a 2-color bitmap. so i put er at 600 dpi and take whatever she gives me. I decided long ago that fiddling and tweaking my art doesn't really do a whole lot.

bring it into p-shop, convert to grayscale or color, clean up any stray marks. for coloring in p-shop, i'm fond of doing color on a new layer above the drawing layer & setting it to "multiply". but most of my coloring consists of flat blocks o' color dropped in with the lasso tool.

[nemotron]

ADOBE STREAMLINE... you scan in the lineart, then you can tweak it however the fuck you want. i think it was made for doing clipart... it works great though

[RavenousMedia]

How good is streamline? I've tried just using the trace tool in Illustrator with pretty shitty results. I'm not much of a vector guy though...

Anyway, I scan and adjust "levels". I make a copy of the layer, select whitespace in it's "channel" and delete that shit, make a white layer underneath and put all my color layers in between. Sometimes I make a ton of color layers and gaussian blur them to blend. Here's an animation of the layers being added one by one:



Pretty good system for my purposes...

[Ewing]

scan at 600 dpi lineart
open in pshop - clean up keep as bmp file (takes up less memory)

I do 99% of my coloring in Illustrator. It's easier to change colors...color management is better...type management is easier... file sizes way smaller.
If you're doing it in pshop
covert to cmyk
use channels
create a ghost channel for your line art
magic wand your way through the thing and fill it with colors
ummmm
........


ugghh I hate coloring in pshop.

Ask Trucker. He'll make your head spin with info.

There's also a magazine for the nerds out there. It's called DRAW.

http://www.twomorrows.com/

they have tutorials by people that know what they're doing. The latest one has a piece written by Dave Cooper of Weasel fame. Worth the nickels.

[robschwager]

Originally Posted by Ewing

Ask Trucker. He'll make your head spin with info.

BAH!

[Ewing]

See why I use Illustrator....

Originally Posted by robschwager

BAH!