SCANNING TECHNIQUES - GLASS HOUSE GRAPHICS, INC www.glassghousegraphics.com

SCANNING TECHNIQUES

Now that you're done drawing your sample pages, the next thing to do is to scan.

There are MANY ways to produce high-quality, scanned artwork, this is a simple way of improving the quality of your scanned pieces.

I hope you find this useful.

-- Joseph Caesar SD

THINGS YOU NEED:

COMPUTER HARDWARE
PHOTOSHOP 6 or HIGHER
SCANNER

We'll skip the TILING of art pieces together when using a small scanner since all of you who can scan know it anyway.

STEP 1. SCANNING THE PENCILLED IMAGE (LINE ART)

IF the penciled image has BLUE NON REPRO PENCILS beneath the leads, you will have to do this step.

In PHOTOSHOP,

set the scanning resolution to 300d.p.i. , 24 bit colored mode.

Select the area to be scanned and scan the image.

STEP 2. CLEANING UP THE BLUE PENCILS IN THE IMAGE

You'll have something like the raw image on the right.

Blue pencils showing on top of the lead pencil.

Go to the IMAGE menu > adjust > HUE/SATURATION.

select CYAN and set the slider LIGHTNESS to 100
select BLUES and set the slider LIGHTNESS to 100

CLICK OK.

You should have something like this now, blue lines are now removed.

Go to the IMAGE menu > mode > GRAYSCALE.

The image is now converted to a much less memory demanding file.

STEP 3. CLEANING UP THE IMAGE

Go to the IMAGE menu > adjust > AUTOCONTRAST.

You now have a darker image. (right)

zooming on the image will allow you to see dirt and weaker pencil blackings. (below)

Go to the IMAGE menu > adjust > BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST.

Adjust sliders until the image becomes cleaner (adjustments are variable), be careful not to wipe out details in the process.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO CLEAN EVERY SPECK OF DIRT AND IMPERFECTION HERE.

You just need to make the image a "little" cleaner.

The image on the right as you can see, is a lot better now, compared to to the image above.

STEP 3. "INKING" THE IMAGE

If the penciling is tight enough and you were able to achieve something like the one on the side. Then adjustments could be made to "ink" the image on Photoshop.

Here's what you do.

INCREASE the image resolution to TWICE the original scanned resolution.

This is the FUN part.

This technique, I was able to develop through trial and error. I am sure there are other ways of doing digital inking, but this one works a lot better for me. :-))

go to FILTERS > blur > GAUSSIAN BLUR

SET the radius to around 2 PIXELS.

(1 pixel radius per 300 DPI resolution. So 600dpi will need 2 pixels of blur radius, 300 will only need 1 pixel, 150 will need .5, etc.)

This procedure is done to level down imperfections in the pencils strokes and grays and ALSO to eliminate specks of dirt on the image. WHAT this does is it smoothens out pencils so the lines becomes more fluid looking.

The image becomes something like this.