Preparing for Photoshop



What you need to do is scan your drawing into Photoshop. Or, scan it, save it to disk, and then open it with Photoshop. I usually scan my drawings as Black and White drawing image files, and I usually save them as JPG extensions. You can save them basically in anything that is compatible with Photoshop- just don't save them as TIFF files. TIFF files basically eat up all your refined lines and pixelate everything- which makes pictures look scratchy and broken. Also scan your drawing at a large resolution. The bigger, the better. You can always shrink the image later.


Preparing for Color


Okay, now that we have scanned our drawing and opened it into Photoshop, the first thing we want to do is change the Mode so that we can color in RGB- which basically stands for red-green-blue.

Go to Image----->Mode----->RGB Color. You will know you have activated RGB because a little checkmark should appear by it.
Now, if you haven't already, go to Window----->Show Layers to open up the Layers menu. What you should see is something like this:


Okay, now let it be said that your current drawing is crap. Well, not the drawing itself, but the layer it is on, which the little screen is calling "background". Basically, the mistake often made by people who color pics is they rabidly attack this layer and paint bucket in all the blank spots and you end up with a pretty low-quality picture. You end up with duller colors, hideous outlines, and splotchy areas. In order to avoid this, left-click once on the button that faces the right near the top of the Layer's menu. A little menu should pop up. Click on Duplicate Layer. A new menu will pop up, giving you the name "background copy". Backspace that out and name it "Outline" and hit "OK".

Your work area should now look something like this:


Does it? Fab! Now, click on the layer named "Background" to activate it. You will know it is activated because a little paintbrush icon will pop up next to it and the text name should highlight. Now hold down the left button and drag the layer box down to the . Now all you should be left with is the "Outline" layer.

Now, to make sure our outline is crisp and perfectly smooth and black, we are going to have to mess with the Channels. The tab right behind the "Layer" tab in the "Layer Menu" should read "Channels". Click on it. If for some reason it does not, you can open up the Channels menu by clicking Window----->Show Channels from the top menu bar in the program.
Once in the Channels Menu, click on button. Egads!! Your drawing is all creepy-crawly! However, it is supposed to look like that. Your work area should look something like this:


With what appears to be swarming ants all over your drawing, you know want to hit the "Delete" button on your keyboard. Then go Select----->Deselect. Your work area should now look something like this:



Does It?

If you have completed all of the above steps, let's color!

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