Coloring inside line art?

Pretty quick and simple question: if I've made a drawing using the line tool, how do I color inside my shapes? Currently my file is just a mess with hundreds of layers each containing one individual line. The only way I found was to open the image as a .png file and use the magic wand. It kinda messed up the lines, so what's the simplest/best way to do this?
PS: I don't have Illustrator.

Are your lines flattened, so that they are embedded on the white background? if so, make the background layer a regular layer, then change it's blend mode to multiply. Put a blank layer below it. Use the magic wand tool or some other tool to select the area you want to color then use Select>Modify>Expand to make your selection slightly larger than the area. You can then paint on the new blank layer, and the top layer will only show the black of your lines.

Similar Messages

Unable to add color over line art.

I'm using CS2 and have the following issue. I've scanned some line art (white paper, black ink) into the computer and opened it up in PS. Some of the larger areas of black were spotty, so I went over them using PS black. Many layers above the background, I'm unable to mark anything over the initial line art. I'd like to add dots of white (stars in space) and I want to have a narrow border of green, with black on both sides. No luck with either. I am working in the top layer, and none are locked. Am I missing something glaringly obvious?

What is the mode and color depth of your file?
What exact version of CS (Photoshop )? What OS?
Can you post a screen shot of the Image menu > Mode > ? Ditto for your Layers panel.
Please read this FAQ for advice on how to ask your questions correctly for quicker and better answers:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/419981?tstart=0
Thanks!

Converting pic to line art

I'm about to purchase some scale models I want to photograph, then turn the photos into line art so I can make alterations to them. Is it easier to turn a picture that is mostly white or very colorful into line art using Photoshop?
Thanks guys!

From a quick test:
Load in your file.
Save As to a new name to protect the original.
Increase the contrast.
In CS-4, go to Filters/Styilize/Trace Contour
OR
Filters/Styilize/Find Edges.
Both will need fine tuning to get as close as possible to what you want.
Desaturate to turn it grey scale.
Adjust Levels to get the cut off as close as possible to where you want it.
Erase out what you don't want.
I was using a low contrast file and did get something that was line artish both ways.
Bill

Change color of scanned line art

I'm want to scan a line art of a leaf, make the white background transparent, and change the black lines to red. I can scan the art to Photoshop, get rid of the white background, but I can't change the black lines to red. After scanning, the background layer is locked and won't allow editing.I tried scanning as a bitmap, b&w scalable, 16 color, etc. Nothing works.

Image > mode > grayscale, then image > mode > RGB. Then create a solid fill layer layer > new fill layer > solid color. Pick your color and set that layer's blend mode to screen.
Not sure how you're deleting the background, while keeping the leaf on the background layer. But if you make it a grayscale or RGB image, you should be able to convert the background layer by going to layer > new > layer from background.
If you do manage to get the layer off the background you can clip the solid fill layer to the leaf layer by having the solid fill layer active and pressing ctrl-alt-g, or by alt-clicking the space between the two layers in the layers panel (you'll see you cursor change).

Darker Places on line art make colors a different shade?!

So yesterday I was coloring line-art that had some dark areas in it with bright colors and it worked perfectly fine with the "background copy" layer on multiply and still the bright colors worked perfectly fine. Now for some reason When areas in the line-art are dark the bright colors are darker on layer 1! (not background copy" I have restarted my computer (mac) and force quit the application and tried again but nothing is working! I have no idea what is going on and this is very weird. The link below shows EXACTLY what is happening on my screen . The locked background layer is on "normal" Background copy is on "multiply" and Layer 1 is on normal! This was not going on yesterday and I am very worried. Note that The color I am using is bright red and it turns dark red on the picture. I am using a screen shot I took from the picture I found. But the bright red is perfectly fine on the white area. Please help I am using PSE9.
Link to what is going on: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=16bzog3&s=8#.U4ON6i_TbTc
- DrawingLover524

Open the file with the line art
Place a blank layer above this
Use the brush tool to paint on this layer. The brush tool utilizes the foreground color.
By using a small brush, you should be able to paint within the confines of the black lines. If you need to tidy up, use the eraser tool.
If you want to try with an adjustment layer, do this:
Open file with the line art
Open a color fill adjustment layer above this with the color of choice
Temporarily reduce the layer opacity of the adjustment layer so that you can see through it to visualize the line art
Left click on the mask (the white rectangle)
With a black brush, paint where you don't want color. If you go too far, correct with a white brush. Black hides, white reveals.
Reset adjustment layer opacity to 100% when finished
Tips:
D on keyboard sets color chips to default
X toggles between foreground/background colors
The bracket keys on the keyboard increase/decrease the brush cursor size
Sent from my iPad

How can I easily change black line art to a colour? (Or color?)

I have line art on a transparent layer. That is, it's not part of a white layer, but just black on nothing. I want to easily change that to a colour without changing the quality of the line. I know I can put a screen layer above it with a colour and that makes the black coloured, but it only shows up if I flatten it on to white. Otherwise, that's exactly the look I want, just not on a flattened white layer. I need to keep the line on the transparent layer so that I can paint under it, so I can't flatten it on to white. I also don't want to select the line and fill it as that significantly changes the quality of the line. I just want to change the colour of the line without chaning it's density, or any pixels. Any idea how to do this?

I believe your layer with lines has pure black pixels with transparency producing it's gray appearance. An adjustment can't make black blacker than black
A mask is grayscale without transparency. So if you convert the transparency to a mask, you have grayscale pixels in the mask which can be affected by an adjustment. The result will be a change in the appearance of the masked layer.

Hide line art seen through upper layer line art?

I'm doing a t-shirt illustration and I need the line-art to overlap, remain transparent (no fills) and not see the line art behind through the front line art. If I have two shapes overlapping, I don't want the illustration behind to be seen through the front illustration. I can't use a fill on the front art, because I need to maintain transparency on all the artwork so that the t-shirt color shows through. In Photoshop, I would simply mask away the bottom layer areas I wanted to disappear. I don't know how to do this in illustrator. I'm working in CS4 and I am a newbie. Any help would be appreciated.
In the example below, the gray circle is in front of the white circle. I want the intersecting area inside the gray circle to be clear so that I do not see the section of the white circle contained within. I can't use a fill because I need both circles to remain clear so the fabric of the t-shirt shows through.

I can't use a fill on the front art, because I need to maintain transparency...
That depends on how the T-shirt is going to be printed. For example, if the design you've shown is going to be screen printed on a gray shirt (as your screenshot implies), you could simply:
Define a dark gray spot color Swatch and apply it to the left circle.
Define a light gray spot color Swatch and apply it to the right circle.
Fill the left circle with the default white swatch.
In screen printing, you need to think in terms of inks, not colors.In a program like Illustrator, white means "no ink." The design would be printed as color separations. There would be no "white" separation unless you defined a white Swatch as a spot color and used it.
JET

How I fixed the colored vertical lines on my Mac Powerbook G4 17"

Hello all,
I know that many people with a Powerbook G4 17" are suffering from the colored vertical line problem on their displays. This is were a pixel wide vertical line of color (yellow, green, purple, red, and/or blue) randomly appears on the laptop's display, usually between 24-36 months after purchase. This is also known on various internet forums as the "bridget riley effect" -- named after a painter whose art looks very similar to this effect. Many, if not all, of the laptops that suffer from this defect are 17" displays and have a serial number that starts with W8. Mine starts with W85; you can check yours by looking underneath the battery. It usually starts off as just one line, then two, then a few months pass and before you know it your screen looks like this:
This is my screen two years after the first line showed up, which was two and half years after getting it in December of 2005. Not so pretty. And completely useless without an external display, kind of killing the purpose of a Laptop. As a film editor I needed my screen to see the images and more importantly I needed it to be mobile. There's not always a screen to plug into.
I tried getting Apple to fix the problem, but apparently they're just ignoring the fact that almost all the laptops that came from this certain factory in Thailand (indicated by the serial number starting with W8) have failing displays. They delete threads and forums on their website, and try to censor and ignore the problem as much as they can. Unless some huge media blitz happens, or there is some kind of legitimate lawsuit, I highly doubt they ever will do anything about it, and you can't really blame them. They are a big business and addressing this problem with cost them potentially millions in repairs and tarnish their reputation as a quality manufacturer, and Apple's biggest commodity is its reputation. It ***** that Apple allowed this kind of thing to happen, but as things stand right now, it would be a poor business decision to fix it.
So, fellow vertical line sufferers, AKA the W8 club, my advice to you is stop holding out hope that they will pay for your screen to be fixed and get it done yourself! If you do it right you can get it done for between $60-$99. Here's how I did it.
First off, know that this is a hardware problem. There is no setting in system preferences you can change that will make the lines go away. There are failing physical parts in your computer to blame and they need to be replaced.
Second, in order to keep things as cheap as possible, you are going to replace the parts. It's actually pretty easy.
Thirdly, you are going to need a whole new display. I thought maybe if I replaced the display data cable (the cable that runs from the computer under the key board to the back of the screen) it might solve the problem very cheaply, since a brand new one only costs about $9 online. I took the computer apart, replaced the cable, but the display did not change at all. So the problem is the screen, not the cable. I needed a whole new screen, however, a brand spanking new one can cost between $350-$600. So I went on eBay, typed in my computer, and looked for computers that were being sold for "parts" or "repair." These are usually much cheaper because they are not working computers, but you don't need the computer to work, you just need the display to work. If you do this, make sure you read the descriptions. If there's any mention of display problems, move on and keep looking. You don't want to replace the display only to have the lines show up all over again a few months down the line. They wont always give you the serial number, but obviously try to stay away from serial numbers that start with W8. I found a used Powerbook being sold for parts for $63. It didn't have RAM, or a Hard-drive, or screws to keep the keyboard on, but the display apparently had no issues. With shipping and handling it cost me $94 total and three days to get it. The serial number started with V7. I'm sure with a little patience and vigilance, you can find something just as cheap or even cheaper.
NOTE: Some powerbooks have High-Res display screens, so make sure you know which screen yours has so you know which to look for.
Now, how to actually replace the display. I used an awesome website called ifixit.com. They give you detailed easy-to-follow instructions with photographs. I'll let them give you the nitty gritty of how to replace the display. Here is the actual How-to guide I used:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz- Display/258/1
The only tools you really need are a small phillips head screwdriver and a T6 and T8 Torx screwdriver (they are starred on the end, as oppose to crossed like the end of a phillips head). They say you need a "spudger" but I didn't. You can get these at any hardware or auto-parts store. Return them when your done if you are really on a budget, but you might want to take more part from this new computer in the future, so your call. You'll need to print out the instructions first, or use another computer to follow them since you obviously can't use your Powerbook. Find a flat, well-lit work space, preferably near a TV so you don't get bored while working, and use the how-to guide to switch the old display with the new one. It only took me a couple of hours to finish the whole thing, and I didn't have to pay a repair man hundreds. My display works perfectly now! It's so nice to be have the mobility of a laptop again (especially since the computer i got off of eBay came with a battery that can actually hold a charge).
NOTE: There are a bunch of screws and a few small parts that will need to be taken out while replacing the display, and its important they all go back in their proper spots. So I highly recommend you take a long piece of tape, loop it, and stick it flat onto the side of your work space. As you take out each screw or small part, stick them in order to the tape. This way nothing gets lost and when you work backwards to put your computer back together you'll always know which screw or small part is next in line and which one the how-to guide is referring to.
I really hope this helps people with this problem. This seems to be the only solution. And for less than $100 bucks, I think its worth it, especially since you now have back up parts for any other part of your computer that might fail in the future. My disc drive stopped working recently so I'm replacing it with the one that came with the computer I got off eBay; a $90 part. I tried to make this as easy-to-follow, practical, and comprehensive as I could -- for as cheap as I could. GOOD LUCK!!!
-R

I suspect not. There are long threads with hundreds of reports, most with PowerBooks whose serial numbers began with W8 (or W85). Still there is no Repair Extension Program for this issue.
At this point, your only recourse is to discuss the issue with Apple Consumer Relations at 1-800-767-2775, if you are in North America.

Sending line art to Photoshop?

Illustrator CS4 on Snow Leopard.
I have a truly vexing Illustrator problem. It seems like a simple challenge, though.
I have a large black and white vector illustration. There are no grays, only black and white line art.
I'd like to send only the black line art to Photoshop with the white areas treated as transparency.
Photoshop treats the un-filled areas as transparency, while it treats the white Illustrator fills as solid white.
Ordinarily I would simply outline my strokes and do some pathfinder operations to subtract the white fills from the black.
In this instance, though, there are hundreds of paths: blacks above whites in the stack, whites above blacks, etc. so going through pathfinder commands one path at a time seems almost impossible.
I've also tried re-coloring all blacks as Pantone spots and printing a color rip to PDF. Same problem: Photoshop treats white fills as solid white.
So... is there something I'm missing. Is there an easy way to separate my black lines and bring them to Photoshop?

Outline all the strokes and then use pathfinder Merge. Afterwards select and delete the white objects.

Line art filter shimmer

hi all - I have applied the line art filter to a short clip and the effect is perfect when it's not playing - but when it plays there is a shimmer in areas of the image. The clips are 640 X 480, 30 fps, progressive. The FCP timeline setting is for Photo JPEG. They are color corrected for brightness and contrast with a smidge of saturation in FCP and then sent to Motion. I have played with all the parameters with no luck and looked for another filter to reduce the shimmer to no avail.
Anybody know of a way to get rid of this shimmer?

Depending on your settings, the Line Art plugin tends to amplify noise by "outlining" all the differences, which change slightly, frame to frame...
Patrick

Convert photo to line art?

Dear Forum,
I am trialing Elements and Illustrator but cannot find a solution in help or the forums, or any book at Borders, so I hope someone can help. I am looking for a way to convert photos (JPEGS) of flowers to black line art......like a coloring book, not just black and white or grayscale or sylhouette. I will then print out the line art (1-2 pixel black line art) to clear acetate for use as a positive original for creating a silkscreen via photo emulsion exposure (and then silkscreen printing the line art to fabric for hand painting). I am doing this by hand now.....place a sheet of acetate over the photo and outlining "edges" by eye with a fine Sharpie, then using that as the positive original. See attached file for an example. The line art needs to be relatively detailed ( e.g. petals, stamen, leaves) but not absolutely perfect as I only need to print guide lines on fabric for subsequent hand painting. It seems easy to do by "eye", tracing edges of color or tone change, but I have not figured out how to make that happen in Elements or Illustrator. Of course I have only had the trial for a couple days, and have used live trace, posterization, etc, but have not been lucky. Please point me in the right direction. If I can make this happen with an Adobe product, then I will buy it.....I have hundreds of photos to convert. Thanks.....Bob

If you use Threshold, you can add some gaussian blur to the image to make the edges smoother. You can also add a brightness/contrast adjustment layer between the blurred image and the threshold layer to fine tune the edges.
If you have Windows, you might want to look at Medhi's Fine Threshold filter (freeware) found here:
http://www.mehdiplugins.com/english/finethreshold.htm
Edit: You could also use Find Edges on the image first; desaturate it; then use a threshold adjustment layer. Go back to the Find Edges layer and add gaussian blur to taste. To further fine tune, slip a brightness/contrast layer between the blurred image and the threshold to control line thickness/detail. (FWIW, I would make a copy of the Find Edges layer and blur the duplicate so if you change your mind you don't have to start the project from scratch.)

PSE 7 Need to transparent the background of a line art logo and name

PSE7 How do I make the background transparent behind a line art logo (a lily and my name)? There used to be a tutorial about a line art map in black and white, but I can't find it. Thanks.

There are several ways. One way:
1. Select>All
2. Edit>Copy
3. add a black color solid fill layer
4. alt (option) click on the layer mask in the layers panel
5. Edit>Paste (your pasting into the layer mask)
6. Filter>adjustments>invert (invert the layer mask) Ctrl(cmd)-I
That gives your logo on transparency (the logo will be black, so if you want to change the color, you clip a color fill layer)
transparent:
on color:
layers:
color changed (solid color clipped ) Layer>Create Clipping Mask
Message was edited by: R_Kelly

Using Reader XI (eleven). Line art in download file has turned black. How do I get line art back?

I am using Reader XI (eleven). I have downloaded my Nikon S9700 camera resource manual (pdf) and now all the line art appears as black images. How do I restore the line art? Document was created in Adobe 5.X. I have downloaded most recent version of camera manual and same condition exists.

Answered my own question: Under Preferences> Accessibility> Document Color Options I had selected "Replace Document Colors". Don't you love it when things work out?

Best Way to Make Line Art From Scratch

Hi and I apologize if a basic question, but I've created a rather complex illustration, and I'm wondering if there's a quicker way to go from y first attached image, to the transparent second. I feel as if I'm spending a lot of monotonous time following a pattern of Minus Front, and Make Compound Path to set the black background up for another round of cutouts. All black in the image is one filled shape encompassing the entire back of the drawing, while everything white is white fill blocking out the black space, or other white objects below.
How can I clean up my act? Or what would be a better strategy from the beginning to achieve transparent line art?
Sincerely thank you for your replies, I'm wasting far too much time here, I know it. Happy to clarify any left out details!

Your basic problem is you are not working methodically and planning as you go. You are drawing a large number of paths willy-nilly until the whole drawing is "done" merely in terms of how it looks on the screen and figuring you'll just deal with the inevitiable decisions of how it is technically organized later. Then you discover you've created an unwieldy and confusing number of objects which you hope to resolve into understandable (therefore predictable) simpler constructs as a last step.
It's far better to have in mind what kind of constructs and general organization you want to end up with and work toward that, completely finishing (trimming, unioning, etc.) each elaborate section accordingly as you go. That way you avoid confusing yourself and creating additional work later when you think you are finished with the line work and want to draw the fills. As you work, always keep in mind what kind of objects you are creating: Each path is either open or closed, filled or unfilled, stroked or unstroked, simple or compound.
Drawings like this may be organized several different ways. None is "right" or "wrong"; but you just create time-wasting frustration when you fail to plan for it:
All line art completely trimmed, without resorting to fills in one area to "hide" unwanted portions of the line work in another area. A separate stack of unstroked filled objects behind the line work to create the coloring. (This method can greatly simplify the issue of trapping.) Some users even prefer to create all the fills on one or more separate Layers (although it's not necessary to do so).
Line art drawn more willy-nilly, with the intention of resorting to LivePaint to do the trimming, filling afterward. Some users live and die by this method. I don't, because all such automated routines invariably create what would otherwise be unnecessary additional anchorPoints, and resulting fills merely "kiss" their adjacent line work, rather than underlay them. That can necessitate more elaborate trapping.
Line work and fills shared by the same paths. Sections of the artwork treated as separate Groups (helmet group, visor group, etc.) An advantage of working this way is that the resulting overlaps allow the relative positions of the pieces to be tweaked later.
Again, it's not that one organizational method is right or wrong; the point is that, like it or not, vector-based drawing is all about creating a stack of independent objects. That is fundamentally different from "painting" in a raster imaging program. By its very nature it imposes a need for intelligent organization of that stack. So you're far better off always at least generally planning for that unavoidable organization, regardless of which scheme you choose. The reckless abandon approach to drawing is antithetical to the nature of vector-based drawing.
For example, consider the leaf designs on the visor. As you've drawn them (evident in your second and third screenshot), they spread into an adjacent area where you intend them to be partially hidden by a white fill in front of them. There's nothing strictly "wrong" with working that way (although I consider it untidy) but it suggests you intend to build your drawing according to the third organizational scheme described above. But that conflicts with your trying to correctly resolve your line work by means of automated routines (outlining strokes, Boolean path operations) later whidh is more appropriate for the first organizational method described above. So using those automated features will in some places cause the unwanted portions to re-appear as the object stack changes (as you can see occurred in your third screenshot). So now you've got stuff that needs to be trimmed away. You've created additional work for yourself.
From where you are, based on your first screenshot, you could try this:
Select All
Object>Path>Outline Strokes
Select All
Pathfinder palette: Merge (unions touching fills of same color and punches overlapping objects of different color in one move)
Do the necessary trimming and correction of unwanted stuff that was previously hidden.
Do any necessary corrections of path direction or winding rule, or compounding to flip fills to voids or vice-versa.
Either create your fill objects behind the line work, or use Live Trace to create them.
Because of the runaway number of paths you have drawn, you may have difficulty doing the above set of steps. If so, try working it in several "sections"; for example, with the black pointer marquee select across half or a third of the drawing, do the steps, then repeat for the next third, and so on.
And don't worry...after you've done this kind of tedious after-the-fact cleanup on a few projects, you'll start to understand the principles of pre-planning the organizational structure of your drawings and start keeping that in mind as you proceed. We've all been there.
JET

Thin white line between line art and live paint fill?

I am using live paint to paint cartoon character illustrations. The artwork is brought into Illustrator CS3 and live traced. Then I convert it to a live paint group and use the paint bucket to fill. Everything looks fine no matter how much I zoom in. If I bring the AI file into Photoshop CS6 I can see a thin white line between the black line art and the fill. This is most noticeable where black meets black. I can also see this sometimes in file previews while browsing through files. If the white line cannot be seen in Illustrator is the file ok? I did just upgrade to CS6 if that would make a difference.
Thank you for any help.

If the white line cannot be seen in Illustrator is the file ok?
Without knowing specifics,nobody knows.
"Okay" for what?
If it looks okay to you in Illustrator, then it's okay for viewing in Illustrator.
If the export of it does not look okay in Photoshop at 1:1 or higher zoom, then it's probably not okay for whatever you're going to do with that raster image.
If it's printed to a low-res composite printer, then it may be okay, because the printer may not be able to resolve the whitish pixels.
If it's printed for commercial (color-separated) reproduction, it may not be okay, depending on the scale at which it will be printed, and on other considerations partially described below.
The autotrace routine does not build traps. Typically, when you color-fill cartoon line art manually, you don't make the shapes that define the fills merely "kiss" the black line work, as would the default treatments of a stupid autotrace. The black line work typically overprints the fills, thereby creating printing traps.
Suppose a portion of your cartoon is a hand-drawn closed circle. The black line work is irregular; it varies in width, having been drawn with a marker or a brush. The circle is colored in with a medium green. There are no sloppy gaps in the original between the green and the black.
You scan it and autotrace it. Unless you apply some deliberate care to make it do otherwise, the autotrace is going to create a compound path, filled with black, and with no stroke; and a green simple path which (hopefully) exactly "kisses" (abuts) the black path. Adobe's on-screen antialiasing of the edge where the two colors abut may or may not cause your monitor to display a faint whitish or grayish sliver between the two colors.
Similarly, Photoshop's rasterization of it, or the rasterization of a raster export filter may do the same, and may actually result in some off-color pixels along the edge. (Your description of the scenario kinda raises the question of why you are auto-tracing something that you're then just going to rasterize in Photoshop anyway. Why do that? Why not just work with the scan in Photoshop?.)
So let's leave Photoshop out of the picture and assume you are autotracing it because you want vector artwork. You zoom way in to see if the whitish sliver enlarges. It doesn't, so you assume it's just an aberation of Illustrator's on-screen antialising. And then someone tells you you're in the clear. But are you? Not so fast.
Let's assume the artwork is destined for commercial (color-separated) printing. Further assume the color of the autotraced black is 100% K, and the color of the autotraced green is 100Y 50C. Three inks involved. None of those three inks are shared between the two objects. So even if the paths do, in fact, perfectly abut, there is no "wiggle room" built in for the minor alignment shifts that almost aways do occur on press.
Bottom line: Even if you do determine that the common antialiasing aberations that frequently occur on-screen in Adobe apps is just that—just an onscreen aberation, that does not necessarily mean your file is suitable for commercial color-separated reproduction.
First, you need to understand that autotracing is not the one-click, instant "conversion" of a raster image to vector artwork that far too many think it to be. Just like everything else, you don't just launch a program like Illustrator, start autotracing things willy-nilly without understanding what's really going on. Just like anyting else, you can use an autotrace feature intelligently or...well...not.
You have options. Illustrator provides an auto-trapping feature. Read up on it in the documentation so you understand what it's all about. Alternatively, you can expand the results of your autotrace, select all the black linework and apply a composite color that includes 100% K and reasonable percentages of C, M, and Y (a so-called "rich black"). Or,depending on the artwork and the desired results, you may consider doing the autotrace as centerlines so you have stroked paths, not just filled paths for the linework. That way, using the flood fill (so called LivePaint) will cause the auto-created fill objects to extend to the paths, not just to the edges of their strokes. Then set the linework to overprint.
At any rate, if you are doing this professionally, you need to read up on the principles and practices of trapping and color separation.
JET

Coloring inside line art?

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