ok i may be getting annoying with the but how are black lines colored

[atom_basher]

i made a thread on this earlier and no one (except the godly inkthinker :D) replied so but for some reason his suggestion didnt work, does anyone know how to do this i really would like to know

heres an example of what i want to learn how to do, notice how his black line art is colored (http://penciljack.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29725)

[Pixelated_Pope]

Okay, Okay, okay. I've got it for you. A tutorial is going to follow this post. Just give me a few minutes.

[Inkthinker]

And I'll see if I can't post some screen caps of the process in Photoshop as well, assuming Pope is using a different technique.

[atom_basher]

thanks to both of you guys

[Pixelated_Pope]

First thing you want, and probably the most important, is a clean inked drawing. Doing this with pencils is sort of hard.

The image I'm using 1280x2421 at 300dpi. And there is little to no anti-aliasing. In fact, when I clean a pick up in Photoshop, I use the pencil tool. Anti-aliasing is the devil when it comes to lines. And if you do it at a high enough res, when you resize it, photoshop will anti-alias it for you.

Use the magic wand tool to select anything on the picture that is not line (most likely white...). (Oh yeah, and make sure that the layer you are working on isn't a "Background" layer. Put a layer under it first (unlike my example... tehehe)).

Got something selected? Alright, click on the select menu and hit "similar". That will select everything that is white.

If you aren't working with a perfectly Black and White image, you can set the tolerance for the selection, that will also effect the "select similar".

http://meeksio.net/digitalvatican/Tutorial/Step%202.jpg

Press Delete

You should have something like this.
http://meeksio.net/digitalvatican/Tutorial/Step%203.jpg

[Pixelated_Pope]

Okay, now just select the layer your lines are on, click on the lock transparency button and color away!

http://meeksio.net/digitalvatican/Tutorial/Step%204%20Proof.jpg


I don't claim I know how to use this technique well or effectively, I just know how to do it. I once overheard here (can't remember who said it) that a good idea is to take the darkest color of the object you are outlining, drop that down a little more, and make that your outline color. But everything can be played with.

So, I hope that helped.

If anybody has any other ways to do it that blow this one away, feel free to post it here. I'm just trying to give Mr. Basher here the help he wants. *shrug*

So that's my two cents. ;bp;

[atom_basher]

thnx ope i will definently try this

inkthinker i would love to see your version now, just so that i know multiple versions of the same thing

[Pixelated_Pope]

*offended*

[atom_basher]

pixy i realized what i said may have came out offensive so i changed it, im so sorry. i edited it, i just would like to know multiple ways of doing each thing, im am trying your method now :) please dont be offended im an idiot who deserves a kick to the head

[Pixelated_Pope]

haha! I'm just kidding. I'd rather see InkThinker's way, too, honestly.

I totally understand, I wasn't really offended.

[atom_basher]

pixy i have somthing to add to that tutorial, once you delete everything the first thing you should to before anything else is color everything black so that the little white peaking out is colored

[Phil Clark]

Knowing what you are doing here, as long as you have the line art on a separate layer you can select a brush and the color that you want to paint the line in, and set the brushes mode to lighten. Then when you paint, color will only be applied where the underlying color is darker than the color you have chosen. The white areas will not be affected. This saves you a few steps.

[Pixelated_Pope]

*shrug* yeah. But I didn't have any white poking out on mine becuase the image didn't have any grey tones it. It was perfectly black and white. But yeah, you could do that. It may screw with your line work a little, but if you are working on a high enough res, it won't matter.

Jeez... If somebody doesn't step in soon, I might actually start to believe I know what I'm talking about.

[edit] OH! That was in reply to Atom's post, not Phil's.

[kov13]

heres how i would do it
1st goto channel, you will see different selection one saying red, then green then blue

2. once there right click the blue channel and select duplicate channel

3. now you have a copy of the blue channel, click that channel and invert it by pressing ctrl+i

4. go back to layers and select the entire layer and delete the line art from it

5. now create a new layer and return the channel selections

6. click you copy blue channel thats inverted and down below is a dotted circle that says load channel as selection

7. click this button, notice how all the black is selected

8. return to the layers and color the lines what ever color you wish
:p

[atom_basher]

i combined kovs and pixy popes examples and that workes best for me, just do what kov said except when you make the new layer delete all the white and then do what kov said then put on preserve transparency and that works best

[Inkthinker]

COLORING LINES IN PHOTOSHOP

You need to have the lines you want to color on a Layer of their own. I show you how to separate line art onto a single Layer in a thread stuck at the top of this forum.

http://www.geocities.com/inkthinker/how_to_blueline/color_lines/preserve1.txt

Then click the "Preserve Transparency" box, and you can color the lines with a brush.

http://www.geocities.com/inkthinker/how_to_blueline/color_lines/preserve2.txt

Becasue the Layer is set to Preserve Transparence, the color will only affect the opaque lines.

Easy as that.

[GIGAFATTYMON]

The example you gave was probably done entirely in Illustrator.

Simplicity itself.

http://www.bodyknox.btinternet.co.uk/new-2.jpg

Or If you have Corel Draw Instead

http://www.bodyknox.btinternet.co.uk/new-5.jpg

Could that be any easier?

[Inkthinker]

Yeah, for vector-based programs it should be even easier, since the line is just a "shape" defined by points and curves, not a collection of individual pixels, as it is in a raster program like Photoshop.

It all depends on which one you feel most comfortable with.

[JonWes]

Thought I'd add my two cents here. Just to make the process of isolatiing the line art on it's own layer a bit easier. You don't have to select it with the wand tool. A really simple way to do it is to have your lineart in Grayscale.

Then, I usually go to Channels and make a copy of the Gray Channel. Make a copy of the layer your artwork is on. I do this simply to always have my original artwork there, it's not neccesary. I just hide the layer and lock it. With your new layer, go to Load Selection and then select the Gray Copy Channel. Everything that is white will be selected. Just hit delete, and you have your line art isolated in a new layer.

It takes literally 5 seconds once you get used to doing it.

[Inkthinker]

Using the Greyscale images Black Channel to create the lines is exactly the way you HAVE to do it (and the way it's laid out in the tutorial). If you were to use anything but the Channel to select the lines, you'd end up with anti-aliased lines premultiplied to white, not to a transparency, leaving you with white jaggies around your lines. Using the Channel to select the lines ensures that the only information duplicated to a new Layer is the Line information, nothing else.

[JonWes]

Heeeeey... I see your post now. Sorry, newbie. :) Yeah, any other way and you're asking for trouble unless you go with adding color ON TOP of a picture using the "Multiply" Layers. It can be effective in it's own way, but in the end to effect the lines, like they want to here, you have to isolate them this way.