How To Scan A Drawing And Make It Digital

Are you lot an illustrator just first your adventure into creating digital art? Sometimes it's tough to know when a sketch is ready to go full-diddled digital and how to go far and then, quickly and painlessly. Fear not, information technology's very simple to change the sketch you've been groovin' on into a digital illustration in 4 elementary steps. FINE designer, Michelle, is hither to take you through them.

Step ane: Prep it
If your sketch is in pencil, draw over it with a pen to provide contrast. This saves time and prevents headaches as we move through the balance of the procedure.

Step two: Scan information technology
At present that y'all have your illustration traced in pen, it'due south time to have it into the digital realm via a little magic auto called the scanner. Information technology's important to set up the browse correctly. The most important detail is setting the resolution for at least 600 dpi. Remember, you lot can always calibration down just you tin can never scale up.

Here's a screenshot for how I fix mine upward:

screen shot of scan set up

Step 3: 'Store information technology
What a beautiful browse you have! At present, it's ready for a trivial TLC from the male monarch of image manipulation, Photoshop. Even though the drawing already has dissimilarity, we really need the black to be every bit black every bit possible and the white to exist equally white as possible.

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At this indicate, you lot will adjust the dissimilarity by playing around with the adjustment layers. I tend to stick with just the essentials: Black & White, brightness/contrast, and exposure (unremarkably in this lodge). Oft, that's plenty, but each analogy is a unique snowflake so experiment to get what y'all want.

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This is also the fourth dimension to clean upward your drawing if you have any devious ink or pencil lines. I like to add together an additional layer on top and use the brush tool to add together and decrease from the illustration if need be.

Step iv: Isolate it
Tadah! Isn't it beautiful? Now, depending on what you're trying to practice with your sketch, it can be really helpful to isolate the blacks and turn the background transparent.

Numero 4 To exercise this, you go to Select > Colour Range and employ the eyedropper tool to select the black of your cartoon (but click in the blackness).

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Now you lot have a selection of just the black line art, hooray!

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You can use this selection to add a fill so your lines are fifty-fifty more clean and dark. You at present have your black line drawing isolated and yous tin can play with it however you want!

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I hope this helps those of y'all in need to get a handle on turning your sketch into digital artwork. Have fun!

Annotation: Photoshop and Illustrator are great and mighty tools and there are numerous strategies to get the same result. This is merely the near useful and easy way I've come upwardly with. At that place are fifty-fifty apps similar Adobe Shapes that can turn your sketch into a vector just by taking a picture of information technology with your phone. The method I've shared is merely my favorite and reliably produces a high-quality illustration every time. What other strategies have you tried? Share!