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Introduction
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This tutorial will cover how to scan a lineart drawing. This is how I scan my lineart for the comic (as of July 26, 2004). This lineart tutorial is also for preparation for the softshading tutorial, as they both use the same scan and drawing. Although my example uses lineart made from mechanical pencil, ink drawings, and any other lineart will work.
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Setting Up & Preperation
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For this tutorial I am using a pencil lineart of Autumn. I drew it fairly large on a 9" x 12" medium weight paper. Any ink, pencil, or other lineart will work. The most important thing about the drawing is that it must be as clean as possible. To get a good scan the paper must be free of eraser dust, smudges, or anything else. The drawing itself should be fairly clean unless you want that messy style. If the paper is thin it is wise to add a couple sheets of white paper behind it when scanning. This will help the scan be clean. While these things could be fixed on the computer, it will help save time and effort in the end.
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Hardware & Tools
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To scan you obviously need a scanner. Any scanner will work but I recommend using a flatbed scanner instead of the scanner on the printer. I usually keep my drawings in a sketchbook so the printers/scanners, which roll the paper down, will not work. using a flat bed scanner will make scanning large drawings easier and not bend the paper. The programs used aren't necessary as most scanners come with their own scanning software. But I will be using Adobe Photoshop to scan the drawing. Any other image editing program will work. In order to clean the image an image editing program is required. (Photoshop, Gimp, Paint Shop Pro, will all work)
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Step 1 Scanned Drawing
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I can't go over the actual scanning of the drawing because many scanners are different and use different programs but I will try. Scanners usually have an option for a color or grayscale scan. I chose the grayscale because I do not want any color tint for the lineart. There are also options for the level of dpi to scan. Dpi is dots per inch and the greater the number the greater the image and thus the greater the detail. I chose 300dpi for this example. Most people use 600dpi which provides great detail. Once the drawing is scanned I can go over the preparation for having a workable lineart. The above image is the drawing I scanned without any alteration. The image is a little dirty. The white on the drawing is not totally white and the darks are not dark enough. There are some lines and marks which I will erase later. In the next step I will fix all of these.
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Step 2 Adjusting Levels
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To clean the lineart I use the Levels option. On Photoshop it is under Images > Adjust > Levels... (Ctrl+L). This option is also found in Gimp, Paintshop Pro, and many others. The above image is the screenshot of what the Adobe Levels window looks like. The graph shows how much of each light/dark value is on the image. If the peak is high, there is more of that value. If the peak is low it has little of that value. In this case there is a lot of near-white grays and very little darks.
To adjust this, move one of the 3 arrows left or right. This adjusts the range of colors that the image will end up with. Since this is lineart, I want white to be pure white. So I moved right most arrow to the left of the large peak. This will adjust the range of colors, making all near white grays to become white. Since I want the lineart to become dark I will move the left most arrow to the right. This darkens the darks. The middle arrow adjusts the midtones. Depending on if the lineart is pencil or ink this will change. Just play around with the arrows until you find the best combination for lineart. I ended up with the above values.
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Step 2 Level Adjusted Scan
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My scan is now pretty much clean. The whites are white and the blacks are black. At this point I will fix any lineart mistakes, erasing unwanted lines and marks.
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Step 3 Hue/Saturation
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This step is not absolutely needed but will help with making your lineart much more. In this step I will change the lineart color. To do this I will use the Hue/Saturation option. On Photoshop this is under Images > Adjust > Hue/Saturation... (Ctrl+U). This is also found on any other image editing program. The first most important thing to do is to make sure "Colorize" is selected. This will color the lineart. In the Hue/Saturation window there are 3 adjusting bars. The Hue will change the color of the lines. From red, to yellow, to blue, etc. I put it at 360 to get a nice red. The Saturation determines how gray the color will be. Lightness determines how dark or light that color will be.
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Step 3 Colorized
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My lineart is pretty much finished. The color of the lineart will depend on the background and how you would color the image in the end. I chose red because it looks cool. If you want to go further for preparing the lineart, you can color different sections of the lineart different colors. You can do this by selecting the portion you want to color and then color it using Hue/Saturation. The next tutorial that immediately follows this is the softshading tutorial in which I will completely color this lineart.
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[Written and drawn by Henry Del Rosario, through experience and personal education]
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