Angry Koala (From Inks to Edits)

I thought that I should show my BASIC process for scanning and cleaning inks up so that they are ready for color. First, if you have a pic that you've draw in your sketchbook that has been inked but contains "blue line" under drawing, don't panic. There's a was to get pass that and trust me, it's frickin' simple. Here's an example of my scan: --->






Notice my blue line drawing? Well, it's all good. That'll be gone before you know it. After you scan your picture, drag it into Photoshop and begin editing. DOUBLE CLICK the BACKGROUND LAYER and press OK.



Now, I drew my Koala on brown paper, but I want my image to be Black and White; just my lines and the white paper. THIS IS THE WAY TO GET RID OF THE BROWN PAPER IF YOU DREW ON BROWN PAPER: An easy fix is to turn the image into Black and White. You do this by going to IMAGE- ADJUSTMENTS- BLACK&WHITE. There will be a menu that pops up and you'll see a set of color sliders: Reds, Yellows, Greens, Blues, Cyans, Magentas. Slide them all over to the FAR RIGHT/ 300%, then press OK. Your picture should look something like this:

Your picture should be faded black in the spotted black areas and there should still be a trace of your pencils on it as well. It's ok, we're almost there.



What you'll do next is IMAGE- ADJUSTMENTS- THRESHOLD. Another menu will pop up but it'll only contain 1 slider. There'll be a 3 digit number up top. Set it to 145. This part is can be adjusted to how you want your inks to look. I just use 145 because it looks the best for my style... and it's what my professor said to do. But you can make it any number you want. Just makes sure it complements your line work!



After you've followed these simple steps, you should have clean, crisp looking inks without the grey leftover lines. You might have to touch up a bit with the PENCIL TOOL and get rid of minor spots of black that were dark enough to make it through the THRESHOLD process. Your finished product should look a lil somethin' like this:

There ya go. AWESOME INKS! I'll make a post about my method of coloring using this same pic. But until then, enjoy and I hope I helped.