[Lithia]

Righty-o,

Every now and again I find myself at a loss and hope for you fine, noble folk to offer insight where I lack it.
In this case I'm calling on all the visually, digitally creative ones among us, with the following problem:

See, every now and again I fancy drawing something, I sketch some, erase some, and sketch some more.
When I'm satisfied, I grab my ink pen, re-draw the lines and smile with glee at the finished product.

I then proceed to dust-off my scanner and make a scan of the work-of-fiction (600 Dpi, 'Black-and-white' color setting)
Once done I import the file to Photoshop and I'm presented with what I drew.

Whenever I import a scan, when zooming in, you can see that all the lines are very "ugly"
and coloring that is NOT something I consider doing and even "cleaning it up" is a no-go

Spoiler

This is a close-up of what my scanned line-art looks like when first opened in Photoshop

So some time ago, I decided its best to just re-trace it yet AGAIN with the pen-tool, creating nice lines,
stroking the path I created.

The problem is: when I fill a particular area, there remains a small 'border" of sorts, between the filled area and the outline,
a border of transparency, if you will.

Spoiler

Here a sample of what a filled area looks like without the use of 'expand'. This is a filled area that was created with the pen-tool.

Up till now I've been selecting the area and expanding it by 1 pixel and then filling, but that sort of "fucks" my other lines,
pen-tool-stroking (that's a word now) with the 'pencil-tool', instead of the 'brush-tool' gives incredibly nasty lines,
so that's not an option either.
I'd love to just fill everything to the edges without having to compromise other drawn lines by means of expanding.

Is there another way solve my problem, other than the two I just mentioned, or am I stuck to selecting-and-expanding?

Thanks in advance for any help offered, I know this might be a bit vague.
More details can be given when asked for.


- Lith. ...Loss.

[Famfrit]

Could the white 'gaps' between your coloured areas and your lines be caused by anti-aliasing? If so try turning it off, or use a brush that has no 'softness' to it. You'd have slightly less smooth looking lines but your colours would be neater ^_^

This post has been edited by Quasar97: Nov 15, 2012 - 4:27 PM

[Lithia]

Quasar97, on Nov 15, 2012 - 4:27 PM, said:

Could the white 'gaps' between your coloured areas and your lines be caused by anti-aliasing? If so try turning it off, or use a brush that has no 'softness' to it. You'd have slightly less smooth looking lines but your colours would be neater ^_^

Thanks for replying, and yes: the problem is most likely caused by the anti-aliasing.
I have tried creating the lines with the pen-tool, using the 'pencil' as a stroke-source, which results in hideous lines, which is not what I want to go with.
I've also tried selecting an area with no AA and then filling it, which simply rewards me with the result seen in my OP post's 2nd pic, but with jagged edges.


- Lith. ...Try-out.

[MadGod]

Hmmm, those lines you made with the pen tool... have you rasterized it yet?

[Lithia]

MadGod, on Nov 15, 2012 - 6:29 PM, said:

Hmmm, those lines you made with the pen tool... have you rasterized it yet?

Hmm, I'm not quite sure I follow.
The layer is rasterized to begin with, isn't it?

I drawn a shape (path) with the pen-tool and the moment I select 'stroke' that path via the pen-tool options is becomes a rasterized line, no?


- Lith. ...Rasta?

[MadGod]

Hmm ok, I am assuming that you used "brush" for the stroke path? Make sure your brush tool is set too 100% hardness and then try stroking it again (that sounded bad lol). Also make sure that the fill tool tolerance is around 20-30 with anti-alias and contiguous turned on. I just tried it out and it turned out fine. :)

[Lithia]

MadGod, on Nov 15, 2012 - 7:40 PM, said:

Hmm ok, I am assuming that you used "brush" for the stroke path? Make sure your brush tool is set too 100% hardness and then try stroking it again (that sounded bad lol). Also make sure that the fill tool tolerance is around 20-30 with anti-alias and contiguous turned on. I just tried it out and it turned out fine. :)

Thanks for the suggestion,
I tried what you suggested, but it still results in the same unfortunate transparency border.

To be clear: Did you mean I have to put extra lines ON TOP of my existing line-art (done with the pen-tool), or just "one layer", for lack of better words?


- Lith. ...Verification.

[Taekyu]

Lithia, on Nov 16, 2012 - 9:49 AM, said:

Thanks for the suggestion,
I tried what you suggested, but it still results in the same unfortunate transparency border.

To be clear: Did you mean I have to put extra lines ON TOP of my existing line-art (done with the pen-tool), or just "one layer", for lack of better words?


- Lith. ...Verification.

What version of photoshop?

I think what MadGod has told you is pretty much the problem.

I can't figure how you'd get a soft line with the pen tool though but that doesn't matter.

Basically a crisp hard edge is normally a vector, and when you 'rasterize' something it becomes a raster image, a flat image that can't be resized without losing information. Typically when you draw with the pen tool it creates a path or a vector shape and you have to manually rasterize it... but I can't check for sure right now. Edit: If you select the path and fill it with a colour, it is a raster image.. but photoshop also has vector tools that I won't go into. Make sure 'feather' is at 0 when you do this, the option should be at the top once you have your path selected.

(If you enlarge a jpeg it will look pixelated because it's a raster image, a flat image made up of pixels. If you resize vector art it will retain crisp lines, I forget the description but something to do with math... either way you can resize it however you wish and not lose quality.)

I think you would have to redraw these lines unfortunately, the first time you did it seems to have been with a soft brush rather than the hard brush MadGod has described.

Do a test on a new layer using his method and see if it helps you before redrawing the whole thing.

This post has been edited by Taekyu: Nov 16, 2012 - 11:07 AM

[Lithia]

Taekyu, on Nov 16, 2012 - 11:04 AM, said:

What version of photoshop?

I think what MadGod has told you is pretty much the problem.

I can't figure how you'd get a soft line with the pen tool though but that doesn't matter.

Basically a crisp hard edge is normally a vector, and when you 'rasterize' something it becomes a raster image, a flat image that can't be resized without losing information. Typically when you draw with the pen tool it creates a path or a vector shape and you have to manually rasterize it... but I can't check for sure right now. Edit: If you select the path and fill it with a colour, it is a raster image.. but photoshop also has vector tools that I won't go into. Make sure 'feather' is at 0 when you do this, the option should be at the top once you have your path selected.

(If you enlarge a jpeg it will look pixelated because it's a raster image, a flat image made up of pixels. If you resize vector art it will retain crisp lines, I forget the description but something to do with math... either way you can resize it however you wish and not lose quality.)

I think you would have to redraw these lines unfortunately, the first time you did it seems to have been with a soft brush rather than the hard brush MadGod has described.

Do a test on a new layer using his method and see if it helps you before redrawing the whole thing.

Heya,

I'm using CS6 extended here.
My next plan was in fact, to use the vector tools Photoshop has to offer,
though I've never worked with those before (as far as I remember), I hadn't thought of it untill, some hours ago.

The lines you see in the images are, in fact made, with a brush hardness of 100%
so I'm hoping the vector lines will provide the help I need.

If not, I'll simply continue the way I've been doing up till now, its not ideal, but no catastrophe either.

I'll give this a try and who knows, cheers for the info, regardless :3


- Lith. ...Vectoral.

[Kurosaki_Akane]

Hello! I've been meaning to register here for a while, but after seeing this topic, I just couldn't resist.

I don't know if I could be useful, but I could tell you about my own experience, since I also used to draw, ink, and then scan in black and white like you (now I draw directly on a screen with a pen tablet). What I did back then was draw by pencil, ink the pic, and then I just... erased the pencil lines with an eraser (*laughs* I know it sounds non professional, but it worked and the ink didn't suffer from it). That way, adjusting the scanner program a bit could get me completely clean lines without any trouble. That's the method I've used for many years.

Another way a friend used was to draw the sketch with a blue pencil, then ink it in black, and then set the scanner to ignore blue colour. I can't remember how exactly he did it, but I tried it myself back then and it definitely worked (though I continued using my own method since I didn't want to draw with blue pencils).

This is in case you want to continue drawing on paper. I think it's easiest and fastest, and I also think that pics always look better by hand than by vectors.

Good luck! I'd love to see the finished illustration (^^)

[Lithia]

Kurosaki_Akane, on Nov 17, 2012 - 11:52 AM, said:

Hello! I've been meaning to register here for a while, but after seeing this topic, I just couldn't resist.

I don't know if I could be useful, but I could tell you about my own experience, since I also used to draw, ink, and then scan in black and white like you (now I draw directly on a screen with a pen tablet). What I did back then was draw by pencil, ink the pic, and then I just... erased the pencil lines with an eraser (*laughs* I know it sounds non professional, but it worked and the ink didn't suffer from it). That way, adjusting the scanner program a bit could get me completely clean lines without any trouble. That's the method I've used for many years.

Another way a friend used was to draw the sketch with a blue pencil, then ink it in black, and then set the scanner to ignore blue colour. I can't remember how exactly he did it, but I tried it myself back then and it definitely worked (though I continued using my own method since I didn't want to draw with blue pencils).

This is in case you want to continue drawing on paper. I think it's easiest and fastest, and I also think that pics always look better by hand than by vectors.

Good luck! I'd love to see the finished illustration (^^)

Guess I'll take humble praise in getting you to sign up then, and let me welcome you to our little corner on the internet V___V

To get directly to the point, What you described: sketching, inking, erasing lines: that's exactly how I go to work.
The shoddy ragged-lines image preview you see is purely the ink, no pencil lines there.
Where I differ from you: I can't fine-tune any settings on my scanner.
I can select the brightness, and the color-setting (color, greyscale and B&W)
so I suppose that's where I'm lacking: 's just that my scanner's a bitch (pardon my French)

Concluding from the various answers given, I understand that I'll just have to come to terms with going about it the way I'm doing now.
Select, expand, fill and have a copy of the outlines atop of the other layers at all times.
Its slightly round-about, but I'll make do.

Thanks for the tip, though, much appreciated.

EDIT: I've decided to put a little more effort in wanting to get to know the workings of Illustrator.
I'll just trace my scan and fill the necessary areas there, as its a vector path, it should "fill it up good".

Thanks to everyone for their input. I do appreciate it.


- Lith. ...Curtains.

EDIT 2: Seeing as a few of you have given me helpful input,
I feel it is my active duty to share with you the final result (also, I can use this moment for shameless self-promotion)
Still nowhere close to the professional CG stuff you see on the net, but to me its my magnum opus yet.
So with a decent amount of pride, I present to you: Krysta, the succubus/demoness/summon/entity

Spoiler

And here a less...shiny background, which may bring forth the character a bit better.

- Lith. ...Effort.