Line Drawings

I need to create some simple B&W line maps.
I would like to use a jpg of a colored map, then draw (trace) the lines over the map (in another layer?) and then save only the drawn lines.
Doesn't need to be automatic, just want to know if I can trace elements of the original image and then only save the tracing.
Also need to insert text on the line map in different fonts.
Can I do this with the Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 Editor I see on the Mac store?
Kinda want to know before I spend $80.
Thanks
Jim

Jim,
PSE has several tools which should do the trick.
Here I started with this map:
Convert picture to grayscale and run the Sketch Photocopy filter.
No tracing or drawing involved, it's automatic.
You can make the white transparent if you want to superimpose the map on some other picture.
Layer 0 is where I deleted the white background; the checkerboard pattern indicates transparency. Adding text creates a new layer. You can add multiple text layers with separate fonts, sizes, colors, effects, etc. and later position the text precisely where you want it.
This is all basic PSE stuff.
Here a couple tutorials of more involved ways to convert a picture to a line drawing:
http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/linedraw/linedraw.htm
http://www.lunacore.com/photoshop/tutorials/tut011.htm

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Line drawings distorted by Adobe Reader's Thin Line Enhancement feature

I am working with InDesign CS6 on an engineering textbook with approximately 1300 line drawings. When a pdf exported from InDesign is viewed in Adobe Reader XI, the line widths of the drawings are distorted by Reader's Thin Line Enhancement feature. The default setting for Thin Line Enhancement in Reader is on. I understand that Reader's user features cannot be controlled by a document. Is there anything I can do in InDesign to would reduce the effect of Reader's Thin Line Enhancement on the image quality?
(Ironically, the art work drawn in Illustrator in a pdf and exported from InDesign looks fine in Google Chrome, but wretched in Adobe Reader!)

Thank you for your response. The textbook is to be printed and presented as an ebook. The print version is not a problem nor is the ebook version when viewed in a pdf viewer other than Adobe Reader, or in Adobe Reader in the non-default state with the Thin Line Enhancement feature disabled.
I attempted to resolve the Adobe Reader Thin Line Enhancement problem by increasing line widths and ensuring that interrupted lines segments were aligned. Sadly, the overall size of the illustrations limits the the maximum width of the thinnest lines and Thin Line Enhancement problem persisted.
The reason I ask if there is anything which can be done within InDesign to counter the distortion of Reader's Thin Line Enhancement is the following observation. An MS Word document with the same illustrations embedded as png graphics and saved as a pdf does not suffer the Thin Line Enhancement distortion when viewed in Adobe Reader. I am hoping that whatever is done when MS Word saves a document as a pdf can be replicated when InDesign exports a pdf. Unfortunately, I am constrained by my publisher to link rather than embed the graphics. I have experimented linking eps, Illustrator, and pdf graphics files but they pdfs exported from InDesign were distorted when viewed in the default configuration of Adobe Reader.
I must disagree with your assertion that the only correct way to view the pdf is in Adobe Reader. Adobe Reader distorts the images unless the user has disabled the Thin Line Enhancement. I believe that I am a typical user of Adobe Reader in that I was unaware that the feature existed until recently. I mistakenly presumed that what may have been distorted graphics were simply poor quality graphics. Given my choice, I would hope that none of the future readers of the text use Adobe Reader, but, unfortunately, I know that many will. That is why I am attempting to resolve this problem.

Convert photos to line drawings

Would like to convert photos to line drawings to use as coloring books. Any help for a lightweight user would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance

Try the following:
Duplicate your image (Control J, or Command J)
Set your foreground and background colors to black and white (press D) for default
Then go to:
Filter
Filter Gallery
Sketch Folder
Photocopy
Slide the detail slider to 1 and the darkness slider to 50
Depending on your photo you may wish to adjust these sliders for
different results.
Because you duplicated your original photo you also have the option of lowering the opacity of the sketch layer to reveal the partial color photo below.
Anothering interesting twist is if you add a normal WHITE mask to the sketch layer then paint with a BLACK over parts of the sketch to reveil the colored photo below (half sketch and half photo).
Attached is a link to a free plugin for Photoshop called THREDGEHOLDER, it does pretty much the same thing but even quicker.
http://www.littleinkpot.co.uk/FreePlugins.htm
Hope it works and have lots of fun in the process!

Black line drawings print as purple at certain areas

Hi,
We have a HP designjet 110 plus in our office as a network printer. We have been experiencing some problems when we print black line drawings. Several parts of the drawing will print as purple instead of black (meaning a line/area of shade will be partly purple and partly black). The purplish areas are pretty much consistant through a single drawing, butwill be different from drawing to drawing. I have temporarily set the printer to print with black ink only, but the printing time doubles. Is there anyway to fix this problem? Thanks.

This forum is focused on consumer level products. For the Designjet you may have better results posting in the HP Enterprise Designjet forum here.
Bob Headrick, HP Expert
I am not an employee of HP, I am a volunteer posting here on my own time.
If your problem is solved please click the "Accept as Solution" button ------------V
If my answer was helpful please click the "Thumbs Up" to say "Thank You"--V

Tracing line drawings

I trying to trace scanned line drawings so that I get only one path per line going up the middle of the line and not a path along each edge of the pencil or ink line and a fill between. What I hope to do is convert each line in the artwork to a single path in Illustrator.So far I havent found the right settings. Using Illustrator CS3. Someone told me Coreldraw can do this but I enjoy using Illustrator.

Ron,
Quick, before James tells you that you are a masochist:
1. Cut the path at the ends of each edge,
2. Select both edge paths,
3. Object>Blend>Make and Object>Expand,
4. Ungroup and delete the edge paths,
5. Enjoy.

Animating line drawings?

I recently watched a video on Vimeo that had a simple but cute hand drawn animation for the intro. Here is a link to the video: http://vimeo.com/53869615 I've never explored animation, however I wouldn't mind trying some simple animations with line drawings but not sure where to start. I'm mainly curious about the workflow on how one would go about creating an animation like this?
1) How do you compose the drawings?
2) How is the background animated to show motion relative to the car? I can't imagine one would draw each frame over and over like a flip book? At 24fps, for a 20 sec clip that would be 480 frames?
3) Would it be much simpler to create the drawings in Illustrator to be animated in After Effects?
I appreciate any advice! Thanks.

Look up Andrew Kramer's blueprint tutorial. it covers all the basics from using masks to the Scribble effect. Beyond that you sure can find all sorts of variations on the theme, but most of them will involve some form of mask animation and stroke effects, complemented by conventional layer transform animation to create parallax for the illusion of motion. In any case, many of your questions will fall into place once you actually start using AE and understand its basic principles. Not much point in getting wound up in theoretical considerations before that and asking a hundred people about their favorite technique will result in 100 different answerrs and only confuse you further.
Getting started with After Effects
Mylenium

Converting PDF Line Drawings back into CAD Formats?

Hi there
First of let me say Hi! I'm Ryan Holden, a design engineer working for General Motors Europe in the UK. Sorry to register and come straight at you with a question but I'm at a bit of a loss and I've always found forums the best way to get advice.
I have an issue at work. I have been sent some drawings by a supplier that I need to make changes to. The drawings have been saved in a PDF format but were generated using the CAD software CATIA V5 R18 (if anyone is familiar with that?).
Is there a way that I can return/reconvert this PDF file back into the .CATDrawing format that the software package generated, or am I barking up the wrong tree?
Hope you can help, thanks a lot for your time!
Kind Regards
Ryan Holden
Design Engineer
GME Engineering Millbrook

Hi there
Thanks very much for your help. I must admit I was not optimistic that it was a faesible task and this has pretty much confirmed it. I don't have access to the original CAD file anyway so it makes it a moot point.
I appreciate you're time!
Thanks again
Ryan Holden
Design Engineer
GME Engineering Millbrook

How do you animate line drawings? On the fly.

I know there are many tutorials on paths and animating on paths. However my application is a bit different.
I have a embedded hardware device that we created that, when feed certain input it will output Cartesian coordinates. Since these coords are computed while the device is receiving input there is not way I can "pre compute" a path to animate on.
What I am trying to do is have each line "grow" or "animate" to its new endpoint vs just a jerky instantly drawn line to its new endpoint. Perhaps a better word for this is a gradual "transition". I have the "velocity" of the line being drawn too btw.
You can see a video here of the "jerky" verison:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rileyporter/6852883154/in/photostream
Please let me know if this question makes any sense.
Riley

The API documentation itself has some sample code. And it has links to a tutorial:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/list.html
and an advanced article:
http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/tech_topics/jlist_1/jlist.html
both of which have sample code.

Can I export/share a line file from free CC as pdf or illus cs2 file so client can view/edit?

I can't find a clear answer to this really simple question so I hope someone here can help me.
I haven't purchased my ink and slide yet, or used any of the creative cloud software. Before I do I want to make sure I understand what I can share with Line and the free level of CC. I want to use them for a particular client who is still old school. So... If I have a drawing created in Line on my ipad and a client with an older macbook pro, still running CS2 (so osx 10.6.8), and I have an ipad with Line and a free Creative Cloud membership (but no CC versions of Adobe software other than Line), is it possible to:
send her a pdf she can open and print?
send her a file she can open/edit/print in CS2?
send her anything she can open and/or edit and/or print?
Print something I can mail to her.
I guess I'm basically asking: what are my limitations for sharing/printing Line drawings with only the free CC membership?

Short answer is No.
Be aware the free level of CC is for CCStorage only. Although they don't mention it you need a Creative Cloud Subscription (which includes all their pro desktop applications) to export Vectors.
If your friend has a CC subscription you might ask her to log in using her details and transfer the files that way

Word docs with bitmap drawings converted to grayscale

I'm still using Acrobat/Distiller 5 on Windows 2000 Pro to prepare press ready PDFs of word 2000 docs with black & white line drawings (600 dpi bitmaps). I've always used the default "Press" job option file and simply printed to the distiller printer that is installed with Acrobat. Been doing this without any problems for years. I had some computer problems recently and had to change to a different machine. Now when I print, the resulting PDFs have those 600 dpi bitmaps converted to grayscale images. I've tried every setting I can think of to make it go away. Like I said, I've never had to change anything from the default job options file. I've tried printing the postscript to a file, then distilling, always the same. BTW, fonts look good. I know there is a solution because this same thing popped up 2 or 3 years ago and it got solved then, but I can't figure it out this time. Nothing has changed wth the docs, but a new install of Acrobat on different hardware, same OS. Help please -deadline looming.
Thanks, Dave

To all those having trouble converting documents to pdfs, I did some research and found a work around.
Go to File and choose Save & Send. Then choose Create PDF/XPS document. Click the Create button. PDF is generated.

How do I create a brush / line drawing from a photo source?

Working on converting photos into brush or line drawings for a printmaking project.
What tools do I use to do this?
I saved the photos in maximum qulaity with 600 pixels / inch.
I need to have them large enough to be enlarged to 16" x 24"
Any suggestions? Tried to find this here on the help site but couldn't find what I needed to help me.
Thanks muchly,
birgitta in Toronto

here are some great video tutorials for you to reference:
enjoy,
janelle

Mono line art image reproduction

My book has about 150 scanned B/W line drawings which I have as TIFF files, 1 bit per pixel. Currently these are CCITT Fax 4 compressed, making them small, less than 100kb/page. I am submitting an Indesign-generated PDF of the book to a digital book printer. Q: Does the presence or absence of compression in the image files before placement in the book have any bearing on the image data within the PDF produced by Indesign? I am unsure whether I need to switch to an uncompressed format (about 10x more data) to avoid production problems on the digital printer.

Actually this is a slighly daft question as I can just check the PDF files sizes, but any observations or experiences on this subject are welcome. The output device is a 'Nipson Varypress'.

Scanning pencil drawings from vellum to transparent background??

Hi, how can pencil drawings on vellum (or any white background) be scanned into Photoshop in a way which would render their white backgrounds transparent?
Is there a trick to layer settings, for example, which will take out the (grayish) scanned white background and enable one to replace it with transparency or another color altogether?
Thanks

Those Berg Designs Filters are pretty darn cool Buko- Thanks.
jezzthisisfull,
That filter might do it for you, and you have nothing to lose by trying. If not, you could go about it the old fashion way.
Duplicate the channel that has the most contrast (if there's any difference), apply Levels or Curves to the new channel and really Blast the contrast. (I prefer Curves).
Then use that channel as a mask.
Potential problem: Depending on how clean the line drawings are, you might get fuzzy edges. (You know those little lead flakes that aren't really that noticeable in the originals but always got you busted by your Typography teacher anyway.)
DLS

Convert scanned signature into line drawing

I have a need to convert scanned signatures into line-drawings. I could buy MIcrosoft Illustrator (or something) to do it, but I was wondering if anyone knew of a free-ware Java tool that could do this.
It would work somehting like the following:
1. Sign your name on a white piece of paper.
2. Scan the image and store it as an jpeg file.
3. A program (hopefully free in Java) would read in the image and output one of the following:
a) output to another jpeg file where the signature had been converted to line-drawings (so the lines are thiner and more crisp than the scanned image)
b) output the vector coordinates that could be read into another custom program that could dynamically create the jpeg (I know how to write this jpeg-creatio program from coordinates...).
thanks,
Jeff

For starters, using JPEGs in this situation is a poor choice because it is a lossy format.
Second, it seems like what you're after is something like OCR. I think I asked a question once about OCR for java... I think I remember someone telling me that it's out there. But anyway search the web for that.
Even if all you're interested in is code that will smartly 'correct' an image I don't think that there is freely available code (might not be any Java code at all) to do this.

Black line sketch renderings printing with teal or magenta

Aloha,
When I print architectural drawings with my DesignJet 110 I sometime place computer generated sketch renderings in with the architectural plans which are vector line drawings. The architectural line drawings and the sketch renders are computer generated made with ArchiCAD. The HP 110 DesignJet prints the rendering and only the rendering with teal or magenta or a fade of both even though the rendering is black lines. The architectural line drawings on the same page print beautifully in black. There is nothing on the page that is using any color lines.
When I set the printer to "Only Use Black Ink" the renders come out in black but the quality of the rendering's lines is poorer than when it prints using the teal/magenta.
I would like to get the printer to print high quality renderings with just black ink.
What is causing the problem?
How can I fix the problem?
Mahalo,
John

This forum is focused on consumer level products. For the Designjet you may have better results posting in the HP Designjet forum here.
Bob Headrick, HP Expert
I am not an employee of HP, I am a volunteer posting here on my own time.
If your problem is solved please click the "Accept as Solution" button ------------V
If my answer was helpful please click the "Thumbs Up" to say "Thank You"--V

Line Drawings

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