Welcome to Gaia! ::

Part One- scanning an inked image in preparation to be coloured.

Say you have a picture you've drawn and painstakingly inked, and now you want to photoshop it to add colour or what have you. Only problem is, you're not sure how to go about it.

First, open photoshop. Go up to file>import then select your scanner. Your image will then get scanned. It is important that you scan it as a GREYSCALE image, with a reasonably high resolution (around 200) if you plan on doing detailed work.

Reasons: Greyscale makes it much easier when scanning it, and makes the next few steps a little easier. A high resolution, while upping the file size quite a bit, makes it easier to do detailed work.

Now, you should have your freshly scanned greyscale image in photoshop.


Hit ctrl+m and you'll open up the curves window. First, hit the button marked auto, then click okay.


Look, your image is more defined already!


But that's not good enough. Select your entire image and copy it, this makes things easier so just bear with me. Now, start a new image. You will want this to be RGB mode


and the contents to be transparent.


In your new image create a new layer. The layers pallete is one of the most usefull tools you can ever use, it is your best friend. 3nodding


Now, paste the image you copied onto this new layer. Rename your new layer "lines" or whatever you like.


At this point you can close the first file where your image was originally scanned, because you don't need it anymore.

Zoom in a little closer if you feel like it, and hit ctrl+m again. Play with the curves settings until you end up with what you feel are the strongest black lines possible.

NOTE! Make sure you have the preview checkbox checked while you do this!


Now, you have a number of options: You can set your layer blending mode to multiply and lock the layer.
However this will make using the base colouring technique number 3 more difficult or impossible for use.

OR you can take your magic wand tool

and click on any of the white areas on your image- make sure you have your tolerance set to 12 or higher.

Then go to select>modify>expand
And expand it by one. This pushes out the boundaries of your selection by one pixel all around.

Then hit delete. You'll have a bunch of lines over a transparent background that will look something like this:


Now, go to the layer beneath the layer with your lines on it. Use your paint bucket to fill it with white.
Then go back to your layer with the lines and select your eraser tool.
Set your eraser mode to pencil, then erase any stray black pixels you don't want in your lineart.


Lock the layer with your lineart on it- you're done editing it.


You are now ready to move on to step two, adding base colour.

Part 3- adding light and shadow

Now, the part you've all been waiting for- adding shadows and highlights on our picture! It's easier than it seems, the only challenge is in choosing where your light will be coming from and how intense you want your light source to be. Once again, remember to save often! This is only how I do it, there are a number of different methods that can be used.

I'm lighting it from just about straight above, if you want to, draw a circle on a new layer so you always know where your light is coming from. Just remember to delete it once you're done using it.


Now, go to your layer for skin. The first tool I'm going to show you is the burn tool.

This tool makes things darker, try it.

But it's not exactly what we want the way it is now, so undo it. (ctrl+z to undo the last thing you did, alt+ctrl+z to undo things before that.) We are going to play with the settings to learn the burn tool, first, the exposure slider.

The higer the percent the more intense the burn and the darker the shadow will be. 100% is the most intense, 1% is the least. At 1% you can't even see the shadow, but by going over the same burnt area over again you make it more intense. I don't advise working in anything lower than a 10 % exposure for burning, because it takes so long to get any visible results. A low burn exposure that constantly goes over the same area working your way down so the darkest areas are where they need to be gets a sort of gradiated effect.

By changing the kind of brush you use you can change the appearance of the burn. See the difference between the default brush and a different one? Both were burnt at 100% exposure.

Now, to show you what the range setting does.

We already have seen what midtone burns do, so lets set the exposure back to 100% and the range to shadows. When the range is set to shadows, the colour becomes darker and more intense where you burn.

Undo that, then set your range to highlights. When the range is set to highlights, the area you burn will lose colour and get blacker.

Undo that, now you know the basics of your burn tool. Choose the brush, exposure, and range setting you feel will work best with your lighting. For the skin I am working with the default brush with the diameter set to 38, the midtones range, and an exposure of 29%, however I constantly change my brush size and exposure to make it look right.
Pick out the areas where your shadows will be and burn them. You will want the areas that are more in shade to be darker and the more in light areas to be gotten just very lightly. I can't tell you how to pick out your areas for shading, it relies on your own ability to be aware of where your light is coming from and how intense the lighting is.


Eventually you will be done with burning the skin and ready to put on highlights. That means learning a new tool! The dodge tool.

What the dodge tool does is the opposite of the burn tool. It makes the areas you go over lighter and brighter. First, what the settings do:
A high exposure = a more intense dodge.
A 100% exposure (midtone range)

A 1% exposure (midtone range)

Just like with the burn tool, you can't really see the 1% exposure.
When the range is set to shadows the area you dodge will get lighter and whiter but not brighter.
A 100% exposure with range set to shadows

When it is set to the highlights it becomes brighter and sort of lighter, but not whiter.
A 100% exposure with the range set to highlights

I don't advise dodging with it set to highlights except for special accents like flares on the hair or on clothing.
Experiment with your settings, undoing what you don't like until you find the settings you think look best. This is up to your discretion, just keep in mind how intense your light source is and where it is located.
Dodge in your highlights so you get the look you like.


You should burn and dodge all your coloured layers until you've got your shadows and highlights looking the way you like. I tend to save a backup copy of my original base coloured image just in case I decide I don't like the way it look and decide to start over right from square one.

And there you have it, one of many possible methods for applying light and shadow to your photoshop image.

Resize your image easily by going to image>image size. I reccomend that you constrain your porportions and set your resampling to bicubic.

Input the height or width of your image. When porportions are constrained it automatically inputs the pixels in relation to it- like so:

All I had input was a height of 500 pixels and the width automatically changed to keep the image in porportion.
Hit ok and you're done. ^_^
IF you encounter any white fuzz after you do this, fix this simply by creating a new layer underneath all the existing ones except the background, taking a very dark grey or black then colouring in where you can see white fuzz on that layer with either the paint brush or pencil tool.

Inking a sketch in Photoshop.

First import the sketch- go back to part one to see the import instructions in case you've forgotten. You should now have your sketch on a greyscale image by itself, pretty oogly yes? Rough lines and smudges and stuff...


First, crtl+m and then auto- this will darken the black areas and lighten the white ones. Select all ctrl+a copy ctrl+c and then paste it into a new document. Make sure the new one has a colour mode of RGB and the contents to be transparent.

Make a background layer all white and move it behind the layer with your sketch, then go back to the layer with your sketch on it. Change the opacity of the layer with your sketch to 50%


Zoom into 100% so you can see what you're doing. Now you have two options here for what tool you want to use, you can use the pen tool (which takes a bit more effort) or the free form pen tool (if you're very confident about the steadyness of your hand). I shall show you how to use the ordinary pen tool first.
Using the pen tool
Choose your pen tool

Begin by finding a place on your image to start the line and click once, this creates an anchor point then go to the point in which the line you are tracing curves and click again to create another anchor point.

By clicking and holding down the mouse button when you create an anchor point you can drag and force the line to curve.

Release the button once you're happy with how the line is curved. You should get something like this.

However the new line you put down will be curved thanks to the curve you put in earlier. Fix that by holding down the alt key and then clicking the anchor point. It will remove the handle that causes the curve in your new line.

Keep going till you're all around the line it should look something like this

Not exactly what we're after- but there's more! Now you need to trace around the rest of the line till you eventually get back to where you started. Click on your first anchor point to finish and voila- you have used the pen tool to create a line (also known as a path) for your image.

If you want to change your path after you've created it, you can use the add anchor point, delete anchor point, and convert point tools.

Add anchor point creates an anchor point along the path that you can drag along as well as a set of curve handles you can use to curve the line. Delete anchor point, obviously, deletes an anchor point. And the convert tool removes the curve handles when you click the anchor point.

Using the free form pen tool
First, choose your pen tool and switch it over to free form

Now, click and drag as you trace around the line you are going around.

When you release the mouse button, automatically the path (the shape you've drawn) will close.

You need to have REALLY steady hands to do this with a mouse or the shape will be crappy. Zooming in may help to make it a bit easier. Personally I don't use the free form pen tool that often as I have shaky hands.

Now, once you have traced all the lines you intend to use it should look something like this.

It may take awhile to get to this point, but inking with the pentool makes for some VERY nice lines and a better end result.
Delete the layer with your sketch on it. Then, go to layer>merge visible (ctrl+shift+E) This will put all your lines on one layer. If it merges with the white background layer that's okay, just set your layer mode to multiply.

You should be done inking now. Lock the layer with your lines, and refer to parts two and three of my tutorial for adding colour. You may want to resize your image before inking, as the lines you get will be very fine at some points as the example below shows.

I must agree, this is awesome. This is most of what I needed to take my art to the next level.

I'm beginning to get a good idea of digital artwork and manga drawing. Awesome! 3nodding

sweatdrop Do I have a lot of practising to do!

there is an easier way to makes lines its own layer
1. you clean up your sketch
2. select your entire picture and copy it
3. create a new layer a fill it in with black
4. click the button that says 'edit in mask mode' (or something similar)
5. paste the picture (the lines should be red with a black background)
6. exit mask mode and press delete

there is also an easier way to use the pen tool (i always have issues using that method)
1. click the pen tool button
2. click a place where there is a corner
3. click another place where there is a corner
4. click somewhere in between the two anchor points where you want it to curve
5. hold down ctrl and drag out the point

(if this is confusing, PM me, I have a few pictures of it)

I will do avi art commisons too if anyone wants emm (even tho i aint that good)