Lizkay's Tutorials!

At first take your scanned and cleaned pic and name its layer "Sketch" or whatever you would like, just to make it easier for you, if I mention the layer "Sketch" I mean the layer with the drawing on it! Now make a new layer, fill this one with white color and name it "White", after that be sure that this layer is under your "Sketch" layer! Like you see it here on the Screenshot.

After that be sure that you are in your Sketch layer, than click on "Channels" in the menue on the top of this window. My pic here is currently in RGB mode, if you are in Greyscale or CMYK mode it maybe looks a bit different but don't worry, here it doesn't matter what color mode you use in the moment! Now lets use the "Mark Channels as Selection" tool, you can see it here in a red circle, click on it!

Now you will get a strange selection on your picture, after that click back into the layer menue so that you see your layers again, be sure that your are still in your Sketch layer! Now you can take a really big eraser brush and go over the picture and delete all the marked pixels or just press the DEL button, but don't delete your whole layer! Just delete the marked pixels!

After you deleted these pixels press SHIFT+CTRL+i, that inverts your selection, you can also do the same if you go into the Select menue in the photoshop task line. After you deleted your pixels you will recognise that the pic has now a very light color. Now take a really big brush, (the size don't matters just take a bit one so that you don't need to paint over it too long) after that (ALWAYS BE SURE THAT YOU ARE IN THE SKETCH LAYER!!!) paint over the inverted selection. If you see the fat brush line beside your sketch you forgot to invert the selection!

Now enable your selection, you shouldn't see much differences between your ground-scan and our overworked version now, but hey! Go to the White layer and click on the eye symbol to hide it, and wowies, what do you see? The Sketch layer is now free of any white pixel and you still got smooth lines! Don't forget to save your picture as PSD file! Because if you don't save it in this way our layer will get lost! Oh and after you looked at your Sketch layer you can also click on the eye-symbol again, so that your White layer isn't hidden anymore! ^ - ^

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3. The GC-layer (GroundColor)
Now let's go on with our picture! Before you start any color-job go into the photoshop task-menue and click on Picture->Mode/Modus-> RGB, the progamm will ask you now if you want to put all the layers together, BE SURE that you say NO!!! Because if you do that all our work with the sketch-layer will get lost!

We need a new layer again! So let's create one with the name "Color" and put this one between your Sketch and your White layer!

Now lets take a color we can easy use, I mainly take a good red color to draw my GC layer. After that choose your brush, but be sure that you use the PENCIL/CRAYON bursh, I am not sure if this is the right english name for this tool but if I confuse you just look at the screenshot, the yellow pencil is the thing we need! Why is this important? Because this brush makes hard 1pixel clean edges and lines, and it is much easier to work with it, believe me! ^o^

But I know what you will think now, this hard brush will destroy my smooth lines! But NO! It will not! Just look at my next screenshot, you see the line of the hard brush without the sketch layer over it and on the bottom you see the head of my creature with the lion under it, it still has a smooth line!

Now, be sure again that you are in your Color layer, and paint your pic a second time, eh, not really just draw inside your outline of the sketch and fill the thing with red color, be sure that the smooth thing isn't checked in the color-filling tool. Now you pic should look like this screenshot, your white layer, the color layer with your red GC and the sketch line layer over it.

Now you will think, why do we draw a GC layer and don't finally color it normally? Because we will waste a lot time if we do that! You can easy color your GC layer now, just click on that little quadratic symbol, but be sure that your color layer is marked, after you clicked it, a little padlock will appear in your layer. This tool locks all transparent or non-colored pixels in your layer, this means you can just paint/work on already colored areas! You can see that on the screenshot I took a big bush and just colored the pic, but it only colors the area I drew before, NICE isn't it? ^-^

To do that click on your sketch layer and again on that quadratic symbol. Now you can color your outline without any problem! Just take a brush and color over it! You will see it doesn't matter how big your brush is you just color the outline! Ha...Great! ^o^

And Tada... here is our result! I hope I could help you with my tips here! If you still have questions or suggestions or whatever just mail me at:
lizkay AT lizkay.com!

Welcome to this new Tutorial-addition! - ChannelMarking Method, CellShading and OutlineColoring-
1. The Drawing & Scan You like to draw with ink, charcoals, pencils? And you would also like to color your stuff, but not with tradtitional media? Why not use the PC and Photoshop for it? You will see, it is really easy! Take your inked, or pencilshaded picture und scan it, if possible with a high resulotion (optimal 200 dpi, for prints use 300 dpi) After that try to get a good looking contrast on your scan and also delete dots, scratches etc. on the white surfaces on your scanned pic just with the simple eraser brush in Photoshop.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. The ChannelMarking Method We all know the problem, how can I color the picture without overpainting my inked or pencil drawn outlines? A pretty good method to avoid that problem is the ColorChannel Marking-Mathod, the color channels in photoshop are following: For RGB (Red,Green,Blue) and one for all colors, for CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and the black contrast) for Grayscale (white and black). Now what do we want? We want to kill all pixels with a white color part in them, also light grey ones etc. but how can we get a smooth outline if we kill all these pixels? We need a grey one to keep the line smooth! So we don't delete it we make it transparent! The Channelmarking tool marks all pixels with white parts and does following: All 100% white pixels are 100% deleted, al 60% white pixels will be 60% transparent (deleted) and so on, so what do we get? A very very good result and a layer just with our wanted dark pixels! Now let's do it!
At first take your scanned and cleaned pic and name its layer "Sketch" or whatever you would like, just to make it easier for you, if I mention the layer "Sketch" I mean the layer with the drawing on it! Now make a new layer, fill this one with white color and name it "White", after that be sure that this layer is under your "Sketch" layer! Like you see it here on the Screenshot.
After that be sure that you are in your Sketch layer, than click on "Channels" in the menue on the top of this window. My pic here is currently in RGB mode, if you are in Greyscale or CMYK mode it maybe looks a bit different but don't worry, here it doesn't matter what color mode you use in the moment! Now lets use the "Mark Channels as Selection" tool, you can see it here in a red circle, click on it!
Now you will get a strange selection on your picture, after that click back into the layer menue so that you see your layers again, be sure that your are still in your Sketch layer! Now you can take a really big eraser brush and go over the picture and delete all the marked pixels or just press the DEL button, but don't delete your whole layer! Just delete the marked pixels!
After you deleted these pixels press SHIFT+CTRL+i, that inverts your selection, you can also do the same if you go into the Select menue in the photoshop task line. After you deleted your pixels you will recognise that the pic has now a very light color. Now take a really big brush, (the size don't matters just take a bit one so that you don't need to paint over it too long) after that (ALWAYS BE SURE THAT YOU ARE IN THE SKETCH LAYER!!!) paint over the inverted selection. If you see the fat brush line beside your sketch you forgot to invert the selection!
Now enable your selection, you shouldn't see much differences between your ground-scan and our overworked version now, but hey! Go to the White layer and click on the eye symbol to hide it, and wowies, what do you see? The Sketch layer is now free of any white pixel and you still got smooth lines! Don't forget to save your picture as PSD file! Because if you don't save it in this way our layer will get lost! Oh and after you looked at your Sketch layer you can also click on the eye-symbol again, so that your White layer isn't hidden anymore! ^ - ^
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. The GC-layer (GroundColor) Now let's go on with our picture! Before you start any color-job go into the photoshop task-menue and click on Picture->Mode/Modus-> RGB, the progamm will ask you now if you want to put all the layers together, BE SURE that you say NO!!! Because if you do that all our work with the sketch-layer will get lost!
We need a new layer again! So let's create one with the name "Color" and put this one between your Sketch and your White layer!
Now lets take a color we can easy use, I mainly take a good red color to draw my GC layer. After that choose your brush, but be sure that you use the PENCIL/CRAYON bursh, I am not sure if this is the right english name for this tool but if I confuse you just look at the screenshot, the yellow pencil is the thing we need! Why is this important? Because this brush makes hard 1pixel clean edges and lines, and it is much easier to work with it, believe me! ^o^
But I know what you will think now, this hard brush will destroy my smooth lines! But NO! It will not! Just look at my next screenshot, you see the line of the hard brush without the sketch layer over it and on the bottom you see the head of my creature with the lion under it, it still has a smooth line!
Now, be sure again that you are in your Color layer, and paint your pic a second time, eh, not really just draw inside your outline of the sketch and fill the thing with red color, be sure that the smooth thing isn't checked in the color-filling tool. Now you pic should look like this screenshot, your white layer, the color layer with your red GC and the sketch line layer over it.
Now you will think, why do we draw a GC layer and don't finally color it normally? Because we will waste a lot time if we do that! You can easy color your GC layer now, just click on that little quadratic symbol, but be sure that your color layer is marked, after you clicked it, a little padlock will appear in your layer. This tool locks all transparent or non-colored pixels in your layer, this means you can just paint/work on already colored areas! You can see that on the screenshot I took a big bush and just colored the pic, but it only colors the area I drew before, NICE isn't it? ^-^
After that you can color your picture just simply using that GC layer, you can duplicate it or color directly on it, just what you like! And you don't must be afraid that you color outside your lines, etc. I used the simply cell-shading method for this picture. To do the same just take your crayon brush again take a smaller size and color your object, if the lines are too hard for you, you can still use a filter to smooth them, and if you left the quaratic symbol checked the smooth-filter will also "stay" inside your GC layer!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. The Outline Coloring Probably you saw this already, in an animation-movie or in pixel-based games, colored outlines. Some use one darker color for the whole pic, brown or blue or whatever, but you see it very often in Disney movies that they color the outlines in the same color of the surfaces just a bit darker we will do the same now!
To do that click on your sketch layer and again on that quadratic symbol. Now you can color your outline without any problem! Just take a brush and color over it! You will see it doesn't matter how big your brush is you just color the outline! Ha...Great! ^o^
And Tada... here is our result! I hope I could help you with my tips here! If you still have questions or suggestions or whatever just mail me at: lizkay AT lizkay.com!

Drawing/Coloring and Text by Lizkay 2004-2008 Photoshop logos, tools and symbols are © Adobe