1. The Scan
In this section you will learn:
- How to scan a drawing correctly
Well, in the beginning there always is: a drawing!
As an experienced user of a graphic tablet you might consider to start right away drawing in a graphic editor like Adobe Photoshop, many artist however (including me) prefer to start with a hand drawn sketch. This sketch can be produced just by using pencils of various strength (like an HB pencil for the lines, 2B and B then for stressing the outlines of the drawing), or ink - normally used on the pencil sketch to define the final lines, strokes and hatching.
The drawing I prepared for this tutorial is a comic like A4 pencil drawing, created with an HB and a 2B pencil (default files folder: froggy-scan.jpg). It still is carrying stray lines from sketching and artifacts from the scanning process. Later you will learn to use Photoshop and Illustrator to produce clean black&white lineart, only waiting for the the colouring process!
When you scan a pencil or ink drawing, you should adjust your scanner's setting to "Gray scale" (some scanners even offer the option "Line Art", but after my experience the conversion to real line art is rather done within a graphic application like Photoshop or The Gimp (Photoshop's younger open-source brother).
Normally you would scan at the resolution of your output device. If you for instance are going to print on a 200 dpi ink printer, you would scan at 200dpi. If you are not certain about your output device, a 300dpi scan will serve you for most purposes, including later print and screen publishing. Really a multi-purpose scan resolution.
In my case I stayed with 200 dpi, way enough as a starting point for screen publishing purposes in my intended publishing format: 800x600 px.
More on scanning Line Art.
Let's get practical then!
Open the image in Photoshop, rotate it in place (90 degree CCW, counterclockwise).
Duplicate the initial layer, rename it to "line art". Apply then 3 adjustment layers on top:
Your image should now look like this:
Save your work, then save a copy. From this copy, delete the background layer with the original scan and flatten the image.
Open Illustrator (Print, A4, landscape orientation). Choose File -> Place to import the flattened psd file created before.
Use the Auto-trace function (preset: Silhouette) for an instant vector graphic conversion. For other drawings, a different preset might be more appropriate. You'll have to make your experiences.
Press "Expand" in order to confirm the conversion.
Select all, copy the pathes (CTRL+C),
 |
| froggy-scan.jpg, the initial scan (1700x2338 px, 200dpi). |
Normally you would scan at the resolution of your output device. If you for instance are going to print on a 200 dpi ink printer, you would scan at 200dpi. If you are not certain about your output device, a 300dpi scan will serve you for most purposes, including later print and screen publishing. Really a multi-purpose scan resolution.
In my case I stayed with 200 dpi, way enough as a starting point for screen publishing purposes in my intended publishing format: 800x600 px.
More on scanning Line Art.
2. A little housekeeping: Cleaning up the scan
In this section you will learn:
- How to use filters and adjustment layers in Photoshop to produce clean line art
- How to perform manual corrections on your black&white artwork
- How to use Illustrator in order to transform your artwork into "crispy" line art
Video tutorial for this section.
Let's get practical then!
2.1 Adjustments
Get the original scan: |
| The original scan! Right-click, Save link as... |
Open the image in Photoshop, rotate it in place (90 degree CCW, counterclockwise).
Duplicate the initial layer, rename it to "line art". Apply then 3 adjustment layers on top:
- Black and white
- Levels (values: 188/0,62/240)
- Curves (drag the curve into a 'S' shape like shown below)
2.2 Manual corrections
OK - this is the hard part. Use white and black brushes to carefully "clean up" remaining artifacts and general contamination. Carefully strengthen the outlines, use the airbrush to work on the white parts.
Your image should now look like this:
Save your work, then save a copy. From this copy, delete the background layer with the original scan and flatten the image.
2.3 Crispy line art in Illustrator
Video tutorial for this section.
Open Illustrator (Print, A4, landscape orientation). Choose File -> Place to import the flattened psd file created before.
Use the Auto-trace function (preset: Silhouette) for an instant vector graphic conversion. For other drawings, a different preset might be more appropriate. You'll have to make your experiences.
Press "Expand" in order to confirm the conversion.
Select all, copy the pathes (CTRL+C),
return to Photoshop and paste it as "Smart Object".
Rename the layer "Vector Smart Object" to Line Art, fill the original background layer with white. You should now look at black outlines hovering over white background.
Congratulations, good job! You're now ready for the colouring process (which would be the next part of this bitmap illustration tutorial)...
Happy drawing!
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