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Hi.
My brother drew a comic on a paper.
I scanned it and want to color it on the computer.
My questions is: What should I use to color the comic? I have Photoshop Elements and Xara Xtreme. Which one do you recommend to use?
If in Xtreme- could you please give me some advice on techniques and how to color it?
Attached is the comic for you to see what kind I'm talking about.
Thanks!
One of TG's skilled cartoonists, Bob Hahn, created an instructional video on this very subject.
Colouring a drawing in Xara
Thanks, that's a great video.
But- the drawing I want to color wasn't drawn in Xara, and therefore it is a bitmap and the technique used in the movie to convert to shapes won't work.
What do you think?
ok in very simple terms - this is what you do
you need to draw the shapes using the lines of the comic as a guide - I use a tablet
stained glass transparency removes the white in the bitmap - as you will see in the xar file
hope it give you an idea
You want to convert the scanned drawing to vector shapes.
Have a look at Paul Soderholm's excellent Guest Tutorial From Line Art to Clip Art.
I don't know if Elements has a magic wand, but if it does, that is probably your best bet to scanned colour line drawings.
Two good suggestions there
Paul's tutorial is great - if you have a hi-res greyscale scan, that way is good for drawings where the line art is 'inky' rather than 'pencilly'
one area of your drawing - looks like a map - is dotted/hashed lines - if you want to color these areas separately you will need to redraw either way
Mark's suggestion is actually the way I would be tempted to do it if the coloring required is simple and straight forward [not too many gradients etc]
My elements [ver2] has a magic wand
Again you would need to close gaps before filling with color
You could even do it the way I posted in Photoshop Elements [using layers]
Hand Drawn,
Funny,..you're idea was the exact one that I have used in the past. It does work...
For me,..it's even easier because I like kind of an older sloppy off register style of coloring,..so I can quickly and "loosely" trace shapes that simply "come close" to the original
art and then after popping them in to behind the art layer (which I set to Stain Glass)
it gives that nice off register coloring look.
Otherwise,...after you get the hang of it,....tracing with the line tool is not too terribly difficult and you can then get an exact color fill behind it....
In his case,...I would probably do the coloring in Elements. It just may make more sense for a comic piece like that.
Just remembering no way is wrong,....but rather what what works out best for the user and their time constraints and learning curves.
Hi
I'm a freehand draw-er, I don't like pushing nodes [or pixels] around unless I have to ;))
Many cartoons are reproduced small - and so slight off-register can then often be unnoticeable
Feathering helps
Paul has posted up cartoons where the line is pencil, and used this method to color - it can be very effective - especially where the lines have texture, and gaps, you wish to keep
What works for you - you can't knock it :D
Yep...I agree....this is why I don't use Xara for "drawing". It just doesn't work for me. The lack of an eraser tool and more advanced brush customization really hurts this program for me. I use SBPro for sketching....and Expression for Vector Inking....
Xara is used for my logo work and other less free form design work.
Thanks!
I'm using Elements for coloring.
I put the image on one layer, set it to "Multiply" to erase the whites of the paper, and then put a layer underneath it for the colors.
It works great.
Thanks again.
looks good:-bd
now all we have to worry about is which forum this thread belongs in :eek::D
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by handrawn
Where do I find elements in xextrem 3 ?Quote:
Originally Posted by amitairos
Adobe Photoshop Elements is a standalone application. It is not supplied with Xtreme. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by woodwater