PSP coloring question

I wanted to try my hand at coloring in PSP but I have run into a bit of a roadblock. If I take a black and white image and attempt a color fill I get the gray scale dithering at the edges of the black lines. I realize why this happens and have had some luck with using the magic wand to select an area, change the hue and saturation of the selected area so that the dithering turns a more appropriate color like green without changing the bulk of the black lines. This seems to work to a point but not perfectly. Is there an easier way?


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I would do this:

Copy the linework to a new layer, and then use it to mask off the areas you're coloring (flatting). Then when you've got the flats done, move the linework layer above the color layer, and change the blending mode of that layer (can't recall which one makes white transparent and black opaque, but that's the one you want).

You should end up with crisp lines delineating your flats.

You can then work on doing shading and highlights on other layers atop the flats, and depending on the way you want the art to appear, put them below or above the linework.

Also, if you're getting a lot of dithering along your lines, try changing your Anti-Aliasing setting to OFF or Hard Edge. If it's set to On, or in a Soften Edges mode, it'll smooth out the transitions between lines and colors, which isn't what you want.

Soul Train has the right idea. I haven't used PSP in years, but it should work something like this:

Duplicate/copy your line art to a new layer and rename it something useful like "Line Art". Set its blending mode to "Multiply". In this mode, all white areas of the layer will be, effectively, transparent, and all black areas will be opaque (without getting too technical, it uses the values of your line art layer to multiplay against the layers below it).

Do your coloring on a layer underneath your Line Art. This is pretty much the staple of digital inking and coloring.

Another way to color (although this is more of a "painter" technique) is to prepare a greyscale image that has all of your lines and shading, and do your coloring on a separate layer above, also set to multiply. painters such as Rembrandt used a technique like this, building up thin color washes over a monochromatic base layer (known as a grisaille). Using a multiply layer will require that you start off using lighter color values since they will darken over the image underneath. You can also try setting the blending mode to "Color" and experiment with that. This technique is good for many people because most find it easier to get your values (lights and darks) down in greyscale than it is in full color.

If you've got a supposedly black and white image, it should be 2 colors: black and white. Go into "Image" and reduce colors to 2, if it's above 2 it's greyscale. That's where the grey dithering is coming from.

Once your image is cleaned up and no grey remains, increase the colors back to millions.

Myself, I scan in greyscale and then reduce directly to 2, clean up the edges pixel by pixel, and color using the "float selection" technique. I'm still not that comfortable with layers, but they are handy.

all good sugguestions up there! ^

http://comics-colorist-club.devianta...lery/?23893577 there might be something helpful in here the tutorials of the group I am in. I dont know I haven't read them other then that...

my tip. always set your line art up on a new layer. multiplying is a bit of a quick fix in my opinion and doesnt allow you to make color holds which can often be important to a picture.

to seperate your line art from the background first you need to Isolate the lines. If the file is gray scale you go into your channels (which should be in the same group of tabs as layers) there should only be the one channel in there called 'Gray' simple hold 'Ctrl' and left click on that channel, what you will get from that is a selection of the lines.

if you are on Rgb you 'ctrl' click the blue layer that will select everything that isnt the lines, then you simply invert the selection.

create a new layer and fill your selection with black (have black as your foreground color and press Alt+backspace alternatively having black as your background color is ctrl backspace) I find that way easiest but should you prefer you can always just press copy and paste (ctrl+C,ctrl+v but I am sure you knew that) but that will sometimes leave a bit of white dithering on the edges which can be fixed by making a layer on top. filling it black. hold 'alt' and left click inbetween the two layers( lineart and black fill) that will apply anything that is on the top layer to whatever is on the layer underneath it.( so basically it is alot easier just to fill your lines onto a new layer )

some of the techniques I have given you are on the advanced side of coloring, and can be tricky to get the hang of, but Imo they are best way to have control over the whole process