# Pencil sketch to dark sketch to computer



## I Am That Is (Aug 18, 2012)

Hey all,
Well I have once again drawn something that I want to make digital, and its a pencil sketch. Now I know from experience that leaving pencil sketches as is is not a good idea, and most artists seem to sort of "ink" their drawings. They take the pencil sketch and go over it and make the lines dark and consistant. My question is, what should I use to darken my picture? I am notorious for messing things up when I try and "fix" them later, but I really need to know what tools to do this properly. Also, any tips on not screwing up when going over it? I also dont really know if there are any settings on my scanner that I should change to get a better picture with less background noise. I was at first just snapping photos of the drawing which didn't turn out so well, and using the live trace in Illustrator to achieve some... interesting effects like this:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8669577/?nocache=1345288683

but I just want smooth lines where I put them. I do have a small bamboo fun tablet I can use, but I'm not sure where. 

Thanks.


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## Palantean Writer (Aug 18, 2012)

There's a couple of ways you could approach this. 

I use GIMP which is a bit tricky to get to learn, but there's also plenty of information online on how to use it, so if you don't already have an image manipulation programme then it's a good, free one. 

One thing you could do (and this would be the quickest way to darken the image you're talking about) would be to download GIMP, scan your pencil drawing in and bring it up in GIMP. Take a look at the paint tools on the left hand window and right at the end/bottom of the tool box you'll see something called Dodge/Burn. 

Select it, select the biggest brush you can, and then make sure it's selected to Burn. This will darken your image with the brush a little bit each time you click on it/brush over it. If you do this repeatedly with your pencil image it will darken and eventually go all the way to black. How dark you want it is up to you.

The alternative, which is what you seem to be describing in your OP, is making the lineart yourself, which will take you longer but is better if you want that really clean, digital look. It's time-consuming but worth it - I find that the figures I make take about 1 hour each. 

Again, open your scanned image in GIMP. Then look at the paint tools again. You'll see one shaped like a fountain pen nib. Click that and play around with it a bit. It would be a bit long-winded to describe how to use it here but there are tutorials for that, which I'd recommend you watch. It's better than Microsoft Paint's curves tool because you get to change the angles as many times as you like and there are ways of making sure all your curves are beautifully smooth. 

I don't mind talking you through some more of that if you want, but just for now I'll leave it there in case my answer isn't the one you're most interested in. Note me if you find you _do_ want to know any more. And you would need to know more than the above because I haven't even told you about layers.

EDIT: I've just realised you said you had Illustrator. Damn - I don't quite know how to use that and I think it's got a few differences to GIMP. Still, I hope the above is reasonably helpful. Does anyone know more about how Illustrator and GIMP compare?


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## I Am That Is (Aug 18, 2012)

Thanks! I should have mentioned that I have the full adobe suite, so I have photoshop as well. Te illustrator part was just something I wanted to try. Photoshop and gimp are almost identical I believe, so i will try the burn technique. In photoshop there is a pen tool which works the same way where you make curves. I tried doing that, and I'm sure it will require a lot of practice, but it was really hard. I couldn't find a way to change the thinkness of the pen lines, so they were really hard to see against the drawing itself. I had trouble just going around an eye! But I guess I will give that another go. Do you have any tips for making it look proper with the pen tool?


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## I Am That Is (Aug 18, 2012)

And also, any scanning tips? Like what settings to use to get the cleanest pic with the least background noise?


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## Arshes Nei (Aug 18, 2012)

Clean the scanner and make sure you don't have dust and spots on it.

Dust off your image, sometimes you might have eraser shavings and other garbage that get scanned

Take several sheets of white paper or bristol board if you have it and a book, Place the image on the scanner, along wit the sheets and book on top of it. This will prevent some scan through from the light bed.

Scan in greyscale at a minimum of 300 dpi 

Depending on the program you use you can clean up some of the lines through the following methods

Adjust Contrast and Brightness
Adjust Levels
Adjust Curves


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## Palantean Writer (Aug 18, 2012)

In GIMP you use the paths tool to make the lines where you want them, but then you 'stroke the path' and can choose the thickness of pen, style (like using a paintbrush, pencil or calligraphic pen, for example), colour, and other specifications. That's when you get to choose how the lines will look.


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## I Am That Is (Aug 18, 2012)

Ok guys, I followed all the tips for scaning from Arshes and all the tips with the Pen tool from Palantean and I got a final result:
Start: http://i1219.photobucket.com/albums...2-8A0F-D5D15EDCC05F-3156-000001DDF3A163EA.jpg

Finish: http://i1219.photobucket.com/albums/dd437/Sajid3214/newdrawingfinished.png

I did a quick coloring job, so it looks meh, but I got the lines almost right. Any tips for  the future?


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## Arshes Nei (Aug 18, 2012)

I Am That Is said:


> I did a quick coloring job, so it looks meh, but I got the lines almost right. Any tips for  the future?



Practice a lot more.

You also want to brighten up the image after the scan.


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