Coloring drawings

**amitairos** · 15 February 2010, 05:07 PM

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!

**steve.ledger** · 15 February 2010, 06:10 PM

One of TG's skilled cartoonists, Bob Hahn, created an instructional video on this very subject.

Colouring a drawing in Xara

**amitairos** · 15 February 2010, 07:49 PM

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?

**handrawn** · 15 February 2010, 10:21 PM

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

**gwpriester** · 16 February 2010, 01:44 AM

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.

**MarkMyWords** · 16 February 2010, 02:53 AM

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.

**handrawn** · 16 February 2010, 09:07 AM

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]

**TDolce** · 16 February 2010, 07:20 PM

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.

**handrawn** · 16 February 2010, 08:21 PM

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

**TDolce** · 16 February 2010, 08:36 PM

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.