Can anyone help me with scanning line art? I've looked at a ton of tutorials but keep not being happy with my final product.
I scan it as color at 600 dpi, hit it with unsharp mask at 500 / 1 /5, then run a threshold over it. Then I just scale it down to about 750 pixels at 72 dpi. Since I'm taking such a huge file and shrinking it, I figure it should look nice, but I always end up with something sort of pixelated. Like this:
(This image is inverted and put on yellow by the way, but I feel like it shouldn't matter.)
So, what can I do? I'm worried if I upload it as a TIFF or something to my website it may take too long to load? I feel like this should be simpler. Anyone good at this?
Are you resizing in Photoshop?
If you are, you might have set the "resample image" setting to "Nearest Neighbor", which does a very rough interpretation- basically to determine what each pixel in the resized image is going to be, it just takes an area that's being sized down and picks one pixel in it to win out to be included in the new, smaller image.
If you set it to Bicubic or bilinear, it should smooth things out more, because it takes that same area and figures out what the average color of that area is, and uses that color for the new pixel.
You might want to try it with each of the possible settings to see what works best.
I'm using this program called GIMP, it's sort of a ghetto version of photoshop. However, I'm thinking it has more to do with the method with which I'm going from the color scan to the thresholded completely black and white image. I'm doing some experiments with scanning at 1200 dpi and then shrinking it down. Do you have a particular method you use if you are scanning in an ink drawing or something?
Thanks for responding, by the way.
Edit: I'm sort of realizing it's the threshold filter. I can't get my image to be just straight black and white without pixelizing it. If anyone has any tips on this I'd appreciate it.
Well if you're setting your threshold to make everything completely black and white on a pixel level, that's going to make things less smooth; if you set it so there is still a bit of grey in there at the pixel level, it'll be less rough. (Personally I'd go with Levels or Curves instead of Threshold because they offer a bit more control on this sort of thing...I don't know what the equivalents in GIMP are.)
Now, if you've got an image that is purely black and white and is crazy high resolution, and you scale it down with the right settings, it may look perfectly smooth in the end- but if you scale it down with the wrong settings, it'll still look jaggy.
Looking up how GIMP scales images, you're going to want to play with the "interpolation" field to see what setting works the best- it'll be the same thing I was talking about in PS.
I'm thinking that using curves is the answer. I don't totally get the logic behind it, to be honest, but just moving the curve down generally in the lower right direction is making the image almost entirely black and white, without pixelating it. I'm going to play around with this and see how it turns out. This could be my answer, thanks.
edit: Hey man, curves was totally the answer. Everything is looking good now, you totally saved my night, thanks. I would not have thought to try that.
EDIT: The previous question was kind of dumb, but here's a better one: does anyone have any links to a video of someone drawing a still life using ONLY a pen? I've tried, but without construction lines I find it almost impossible.
I'd suggest choosing one thing you'd like to focus on, and then drawing it a lot. I'm doing an exercise at the moment to draw a hundred faces, which has taught me a lot, but you could try drawing a hundred arms or a hundred eyes, or anything else that you struggle with.
EDIT: Check out this video
I was actually looking for this, I read it before you put the video.
My question is, I've been drawing heads, and now that I've been drawing them (haven't finished 100 yet) I notice that I have a pretty big problem with the pieces of the head, eyes, noses, lips, etc. Should I keep going with the 100 heads til I'm done, or pause and focus on these other weak areas that are stymying my growth in the overall area?
I had a second part to the question about how long I should be spending on each drawing, but the video answered that for me.
hey dudes, I was wondering about the best way to file all the photos and illustrations I've saved to my computer. Theres so many of them and its so frustrating to navigate through them all. Do you think there are good programs for doing this? I was thinking about tumblr and blog like tags so that you could type in keywords that would relate to each image. How do you organise the images you save to your computer? Is it a deep layer of folders? Some program that helps organise them all?
Folders can get messy quickly, plus there's the issue of overlaps.
I actually started tagging all my reference/inspiration images according to eg colour, medium, subject, because OSX allows you to assign keyword tags to files, which can then be used to search. I'm sure there are equivalents for other operating systems, but I couldn't guess at specific programs.
How do I get less choppy lines in photoshop, or drawing in general? Every time I doodle something and erase all the sketch lines it just looks weird without all the "background" to it.
hey dudes, I was wondering about the best way to file all the photos and illustrations I've saved to my computer. Theres so many of them and its so frustrating to navigate through them all. Do you think there are good programs for doing this? I was thinking about tumblr and blog like tags so that you could type in keywords that would relate to each image. How do you organise the images you save to your computer? Is it a deep layer of folders? Some program that helps organise them all?
Does anyone know how to get GIMP to work like a real pencil does? I've tried the pencil, but the default pencil in the program doesn't really give me the same feel. I've tried setting things up with other brushes too and just can't seem to get anything to go. I've done some Google searches and can't seem to find a tutorial involving this at all.
Short answer is, you probably won't. GIMP does pretty well for freeware, but it's not got the brush flexibility to do really good pencilling or inking work. And to be honest, I wouldn't even use Photoshop for those. If you're willing to part with some money, check out PaintTool SAI, Manga Studio or Sketchbook Pro. If you want to stick with freeware, download Sketchbook Express - it's not great for painting but it does have excellent pencil brushes.
So I know 1, 2 and 3 point perspective from a basic theoretical level. How does perspective in a thing like this work? Where the horizon is not on the screen and what feels like a billion vanishing points
A lot of people simply have it under their skin, while some work in a bigger format. Something I've found to be particularly helpful for something like this is epic games' Carapace, when working digitally.
How does perspective in a thing like this work? Where the horizon is not on the screen and what feels like a billion vanishing points
I don't know perspective very well, but this still looks like 3 point to me. Here's a crappy paint over.
The plane of the roads (blue and green) vanish really far off the top and left and the vertical plane of buildings seems to converge just off the bottom of the image.
I suppose on actual paper you could use an extra large piece of newsprint underneath to mark the points and a yardstick or something to lay down the guides, or just guess.
I suppose on actual paper you could use an extra large piece of newsprint underneath to mark the points and a yardstick or something to lay down the guides, or just guess.
Yeah, this is pretty much it.
Large drawing tables and long rulers.
Some artists will draw out their perspective setups pretty small, make a good grid and then blow it up on a photocopier.
Markers get crazy expensive, fast. Do you have a budget?
the budget of a student with no use for them other than to doodle. So... cheaper would be better. But not as cheap as to not be worth the bother. I've got decent amounts of cash. Can trade less beers for more markers.
Copics are the top of the line, but even a small set will run you 30ish bucks. Still, if you arent looking for a full color spectrum, I think its worth it just to buy 5 or 6 for doodling.
Copics are the top of the line, but even a small set will run you 30ish bucks. Still, if you arent looking for a full color spectrum, I think its worth it just to buy 5 or 6 for doodling.
in the store I found 6 copics would cost me 300 kr (~52 bucks)
not... too awful.
A moratorium on drinks other than beer should get me a decent set pretty quick.
-Copics are delicious but Prismacolor is much, much, much cheaper and still decent.
-Promarkers (Letraset) are more or less Prismacolors; I'm usually hard-pressed to tell the difference. Both are dryish and need some layering to build vibrance. I'm a huge fan of Letraset's Trias, which are basically their Promarkers with interchangeable ink and tips.
-AD (chartpak) markers bleed like a Hemophiliac with Renfield's syndrome, smell super bad, and tend to be much darker than the label would have you think, but they are fat, wet, and super-richly saturated.
-In Korea I used Touch (shinHan) markers, which are mind-blowingly cheap (<$1 per) but less vibrant and more dry and spotty than anything else I've used. They get the job done though; not sure how available they are. Edit- on eBay you can find them $4 for 3, free shipping from China. I just ordered some and I'll let you know how that turns out in however many weeks when they show up.
Keep in mind that bleed and colors and interaction with other mediums will all be affected by what paper you're using, so you may want to skip the copics and buy some cheaper markers + a marker pad. Regular boring old bond paper works fine too, but you should at least try marker paper to see the difference.
What colors you'll need depends on what you're drawing. Architectural or Product rendering demands grayscale markers; animation or character art lots of full-saturation colors.
Might start on the cheaper ones. Availability is also a thing.
Full-saturation colors sounds like the thing, although since I'm an engineering student dabbling in some product rendering is something I've wanted to do (I already spend far too much time on my assignments making sure the technical drawing bits and the math looks good)
Posts
I scan it as color at 600 dpi, hit it with unsharp mask at 500 / 1 /5, then run a threshold over it. Then I just scale it down to about 750 pixels at 72 dpi. Since I'm taking such a huge file and shrinking it, I figure it should look nice, but I always end up with something sort of pixelated. Like this:
http://summer-hand.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/SunFog_01_LR.jpg
(This image is inverted and put on yellow by the way, but I feel like it shouldn't matter.)
So, what can I do? I'm worried if I upload it as a TIFF or something to my website it may take too long to load? I feel like this should be simpler. Anyone good at this?
If you are, you might have set the "resample image" setting to "Nearest Neighbor", which does a very rough interpretation- basically to determine what each pixel in the resized image is going to be, it just takes an area that's being sized down and picks one pixel in it to win out to be included in the new, smaller image.
If you set it to Bicubic or bilinear, it should smooth things out more, because it takes that same area and figures out what the average color of that area is, and uses that color for the new pixel.
You might want to try it with each of the possible settings to see what works best.
Twitter
Thanks for responding, by the way.
Edit: I'm sort of realizing it's the threshold filter. I can't get my image to be just straight black and white without pixelizing it. If anyone has any tips on this I'd appreciate it.
Now, if you've got an image that is purely black and white and is crazy high resolution, and you scale it down with the right settings, it may look perfectly smooth in the end- but if you scale it down with the wrong settings, it'll still look jaggy.
Looking up how GIMP scales images, you're going to want to play with the "interpolation" field to see what setting works the best- it'll be the same thing I was talking about in PS.
Twitter
edit: Hey man, curves was totally the answer. Everything is looking good now, you totally saved my night, thanks. I would not have thought to try that.
http://www.ctrlpaint.com has been very helpful for me, and could be for other beginners.
edit: though I believe a vid of theirs was linked above. I just wanted to call it out.
I was actually looking for this, I read it before you put the video.
My question is, I've been drawing heads, and now that I've been drawing them (haven't finished 100 yet) I notice that I have a pretty big problem with the pieces of the head, eyes, noses, lips, etc. Should I keep going with the 100 heads til I'm done, or pause and focus on these other weak areas that are stymying my growth in the overall area?
I had a second part to the question about how long I should be spending on each drawing, but the video answered that for me.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SunnySiuOnline/videos?view=1&flow=grid
beginners might find it useful while those Carl Dobsky videos are still down
tumblrrr
deviantart
I actually started tagging all my reference/inspiration images according to eg colour, medium, subject, because OSX allows you to assign keyword tags to files, which can then be used to search. I'm sure there are equivalents for other operating systems, but I couldn't guess at specific programs.
http://silkwoodsoftware.com/index.html
Haven't used it myself, since I just tend to save things to relevant folders when I make them, but it could be useful.
tumblrrr
deviantart
http://www.ironicsoftware.com/tagit/
tumblrrr
deviantart
Go look at my thread, I'm fucking bad at it. How can I control my line quality?
Anyone have any line tutorials or lessons?
Adobe Bridge is good for this. Metadata and such.
I don't know perspective very well, but this still looks like 3 point to me. Here's a crappy paint over.
The plane of the roads (blue and green) vanish really far off the top and left and the vertical plane of buildings seems to converge just off the bottom of the image.
3DS: 0447-9966-6178
Yeah, this is pretty much it.
Large drawing tables and long rulers.
Some artists will draw out their perspective setups pretty small, make a good grid and then blow it up on a photocopier.
Any tips on what type and kind of markers? And paper, for that matter?
the budget of a student with no use for them other than to doodle. So... cheaper would be better. But not as cheap as to not be worth the bother. I've got decent amounts of cash. Can trade less beers for more markers.
in the store I found 6 copics would cost me 300 kr (~52 bucks)
not... too awful.
A moratorium on drinks other than beer should get me a decent set pretty quick.
I feel like building a collection of them. Refills seem pretty cheap.
-Promarkers (Letraset) are more or less Prismacolors; I'm usually hard-pressed to tell the difference. Both are dryish and need some layering to build vibrance. I'm a huge fan of Letraset's Trias, which are basically their Promarkers with interchangeable ink and tips.
-AD (chartpak) markers bleed like a Hemophiliac with Renfield's syndrome, smell super bad, and tend to be much darker than the label would have you think, but they are fat, wet, and super-richly saturated.
-In Korea I used Touch (shinHan) markers, which are mind-blowingly cheap (<$1 per) but less vibrant and more dry and spotty than anything else I've used. They get the job done though; not sure how available they are. Edit- on eBay you can find them $4 for 3, free shipping from China. I just ordered some and I'll let you know how that turns out in however many weeks when they show up.
Keep in mind that bleed and colors and interaction with other mediums will all be affected by what paper you're using, so you may want to skip the copics and buy some cheaper markers + a marker pad. Regular boring old bond paper works fine too, but you should at least try marker paper to see the difference.
What colors you'll need depends on what you're drawing. Architectural or Product rendering demands grayscale markers; animation or character art lots of full-saturation colors.
3DS: 0447-9966-6178
Full-saturation colors sounds like the thing, although since I'm an engineering student dabbling in some product rendering is something I've wanted to do (I already spend far too much time on my assignments making sure the technical drawing bits and the math looks good)
EDIT: Adam Hughes; good suggestion! Neat shit.