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[Sherwood WindRunner]

It takes a while to clean up my scanned comics. Even then, it sorta looks like crap.


So, how do you scan your comics? (If you do)

[tomselleck69]

Scan in greyscale at a high DPI. I scan at 300 dpi, but I think most would suggest going even higher. In photoshop, I use levels to make the blacks black and the whites white. Levels is pretty common, but there are certainly other ways to do this.

What is your inking situation like? This is important probably.


And coloring... is a mystery to me.

[jeph]

600dpi is pretty standard if you're working in black and white. Sammy Logan swears by it. 300dpi is fine if you're gonna color shit.

Levels, threshold->128 to get rid of antialiasing, then use BPelt a la my tutorial.

[C Patrick Carolan]

I scan at 300dpi and then colour in Photoshop... but I clearly really don't have a damn clue what I'm doing. Gradients and shading are a mystery to me.

A good way to clean up line art before colouring is to adjust the contrast on the image. I crank it to like 90 at least, and also punch up the blacks. I find it takes care of a lot of the stray grays and erased pencil marks from the original art... on that note, it helps if your art is really clean before you even scan it in to start with, but that should go without saying.

[jeph]

erased pencil marks

Get a non-photo-blue pencil! They don't show up on scanners and will save you from having to erase your pencils.

[Sherwood WindRunner]

Well, I scanned my image useing black and white settings. Then, I take each individual panel and put them into the "Flash FireWorks" program. Then, I just take the bucket tool and fill it in. If you fill it in twice it sorta like filling it in MORE, so it gets rid of that grainy outline inside whatever you're coloring.


Oh, for erased pencil marks and all, I've found if you use the bucket tool and color it in, it will completely cover all those ugly marks.



Well, I'll post more if I find some more tricks. Thanks guys!

[thecurse]

Couple of ways to do this. The Level/Contrast tricks are really not that great.

If you want sharp lines, create a new layer and use the pen tool to recreate the lines. Then paint over that. Do not use the bucket tool.

If you want to keep your scanned lines, create a new layer and set it to "Multiply." Paint on that. Still do not use the bucket tool.

[bryanthelion]

Couldnt you just scan it and then make a layer on top of your scanned image? Then trace? Thats what I would do if I used photoshop.

[C Patrick Carolan]

Using the Photoshop pen tool with a mouse is an exercise in utter frustration and torture. Unless you've got a graphics tablet, it's really not all that easy to use.

[thecurse]

It just takes practice.

[Spinless]

I used to use a mouse to draw. Now I use my laptop's track pad. The way I see it, it's just another tool like a pencil. You can use a pencil? You can use a mouse.

Y'remember Mac Hall? Mouse.

[salamander13]

Sometimes, like when i discover Adobe hasn't been installed to my laptop, I start in Paint to clean the obvious stuff. Say what you will about Paint, but when you need to do the basics, and don't have photoshop, use it. I like being able to zoom in easily and then just use white pencil and erase pixel by pixel. It take a little while, but you can really fine tune some things if you're using a mouse, and not used to the transition. After that, save as a .png, or you get blurring, which sucks. Then i usually load it into Adobe and get rid of some of the other messiness that results from my scanner being crap, and finish touching it up.

[Neskah]

I used to work with a mouse, then got a tablet, but retracing my scans was a pain in the arse even with a tablet. I'd get sick of staring at the same picture over and over again.

Now I adjust the levels of my scans, and using the select colour range option select only the dark tones. Create a new layer and then stroke it. It's saved me a lot of time and pain.

[KharBevNor]

Do none of you people have Illustrator?

[caseyyano]

Here's a random tip:

If you happen to draw something on graph paper or notebook paper you can erase the guidelines in Photoshop.
You scan the image in "color" from your scanner. Go to the channels tab and select the blue channel. Select the dotted circle.
Invert the selection, create a new layer, and fill the selection with black. The image will become grayscaled and the blue channel should be removed.

Add a white BG under that layer and now you have your drawing without guidelines.
For clean up purposes, adjusting the contrast and brightness works though it is basically the same as adjusting the levels. If there's a lot of smudginess and dust, drawing larger is better. If you draw with a pen it looks a lot more clear.

If you plan on drawing over pencil lines you may want to draw over it sloppily and just erase away the unnecessary part. Setting an opacity a bit lower on the layer may help you identify where you're drawing over your sketch/drawing. Illustrator will create lines that come with line weights and if you understand how it works your image will look ultra crisp at any size and that's awesome for logos and whatnot.

[Sherwood WindRunner]

Sometimes, like when i discover Adobe hasn't been installed to my laptop, I start in Paint to clean the obvious stuff. Say what you will about Paint, but when you need to do the basics, and don't have photoshop, use it. I like being able to zoom in easily and then just use white pencil and erase pixel by pixel. It take a little while, but you can really fine tune some things if you're using a mouse, and not used to the transition. After that, save as a .png, or you get blurring, which sucks. Then i usually load it into Adobe and get rid of some of the other messiness that results from my scanner being crap, and finish touching it up.

That's what I do most of the time, and it's painstakingly long, but wonderfully effective. Though....there is the "painstakeing long" part....




Anyways, thanks for all your insight guys!