Is it possible to turn pencil sketches into ink drawings in Xara without tracing?

[Toonicorn]

Hi, again, everyone. I have an odd question, I guess. Is it possible to scan pencil sketches, open them in Xara, and somehow turn the pencil lines into "inked" lines using Xara without tracing them? Thanks!

[RKissane]

The closet thing to use is the Bitmap tracer. If you have never used it before it does have a learning curve.

Take a look at this link for xhris website for a video training on Xara. You want chapter 3 for the Bitmap tracer at the 1:53:17 mark.

[URL="http://xhris.digitalred.net/"]

He use to have an excellent written description of the Bitmap tracer but he has taken it off his website. You maybe able to contact him for it, however I think the video will get you through it.

Ray

[Mike Bailey]

A couple of options to darken pencil lines in bitmaps, 1 overlay the image with a black rectangle, apply a flat overlay transparency at 0% to the black rectangle and it will darken the underlying image, adjust the transparency level to the desired effect. 2 use the photo tools/levels, dragging the left level profile adjustment to the right will darken the image to the desired level.

[Thatch]

Sort of...

It all depends on what you are after. Here is an image I did in Xara a loooooooooooong time ago that was nothing more than a pencil sketch that was scanned, hand 'multiply' transparency effect added to it and colors laid under the drawing layer to get the look. I originally planned on doing a linework trace but decided I liked the slightly muddy look of the pencil sketch overlay.



If however you are after a strong 'thick/thin' linework customary to inked images than you'll have to go through the tracing (either hand or auto) route. (I always hand trace, never use an auto tracer personally)

Good luck and hope this helped.

[Egg Bramhill]

That's great Thatch. Is there any chance you could attach the original pencil sketch scan?

[handrawn]

Disney have used this technique for a long time - it's well suited to art that does not require solid black lines

You can't expect it to work well with any old pencilling on any old paper - whilst pencilling is personal. it's probably best to keep it as clean as possible and dark, which for me would mean an artiist pencil such as a faber-castel polychromos which you can sharpen well and which are hard enough not to crumble all the time - or a good quality carbon pencil keeping it sharp - and the paper is important; use the wrong paper and once scanned you may not be able to process the drawing without also enhancing the paper texture [can do that for effect of course]; so if you want a solid white, or transparent background bear this in mind [and maybe use a program more suited to this sort of work with fine control over low/mid/high tones, highlights and shadows]

[gwpriester]

Mike - You can also edit the sketch image in the Photo Tool > Brightness Levels Dialog. I use this to make the darkest area of the page white and to make the lightest part of the black line black.

[Egg Bramhill]

Isn't that what Mike's already said Gary?

2 use the photo tools/levels, dragging the left level profile adjustment to the right will darken the image to the desired level.

[Thatch]

That illustration was done back in 2003 (had to check back over the logs on this site to find that). I suspect I have a copy of the file around here somewhere, but exactly where, I'm not exactly sure. I keep a look out for it and if I find it I'll post it.

I looked back at some of my other illustrations and I often times keep the sketch in the finished drawing even when I retrace the lines. That way I can get some of the more subtle lines into the finished illustration, it also tends to just add a bit of life to the illustration that straight vectors tend to kill off. This isn't all the time, but certainly 'often'.

As Gary/Mike pointed out you can do a few things in enhance the drawing within xara by making sure that your 'dark color' is black (select the image and right click on black and you'll see what I'm talking about if you aren't familiar) and that you 'light color' is white. Then adjust your contrast and brightness to knock out as much of the smudges and sketch lines as you wish and go from there. If you use photoshop you can take your drawings into there, and put a light Gaussian blur on them there and then use levels to knock the line back again and that will give you smother more 'inked' lines, but I've seen no way to do that in Xara. This technique works best with pretty thick lines and a standard sketch wouldn't hold up to it.

Again, hope that helped some.

[gwpriester]

Egg - You are correct. I read Mike's first suggestion but not his second.

Another thing I do if it is a black and white sketch but the black is not very dark is make a clone copy and apply Multiply (Stained Glass transparency). This does not effect the white but builds up the black.