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augustc4 β Heavy Lifting Tutorial
Published: 2006-01-09 02:58:54 +0000 UTC; Views: 67512; Favourites: 1499; Downloads: 22907
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Rambi is *zambi 's original character
she was nice enough to let me draw her and use her in a tutorial
( thank you stinklady -3:I )
well, I decided to create a tutorial on lineart separation
this should help everyone having trouble with their lineart,
and help those with a desire to understand advanced setup
sorry it's so very technical, and not very fun, but it's MUCH too important to overlook!
so enjoy ^^
//* EDIT
for those of you that know the Desaturation trick and want to use it instead for Step1, feel free. But there IS a difference between desaturating an image and converting it to grayscale. Look closely at this image ( [link] ), and you'll see that the grayscaled version is lighter than the desaturated version. What difference does this make? Hell if I know
But I trust a full grayscale conversion over an RGB desaturation any day.
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Comments: 497
Thanks, you just saved my life from many frustrations, hun! *cuddle*
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Thanks for this tutorial i needed this! its really gonna help me out! Thank you!
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Wicked cool August. I'm sure this will help a lot of people, including myself, out!
I usually do my lines digitally, but there are times when I just wanna draw with a pencil and... this will help so much ^_^
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you're so welcome jamieann ^^
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Thank you, i always wanted to know how some ppl do this technique, i understand now
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This was a good tut. Some tutorials i know miss things like cleaning up dark dots and smears after adjusting the level/brightness and contrast. Using 'multiply' for lineart is really a shortcut mostly use by comic artist to speed up the process of colouring, but can be hell to colour linework later if you don't prep it like you mentioned.
But thats whats cool about photoshop. If you start a process in a right way you can go back and adjust things (things don't have to be dead and buried if you mess up, and your tut shows how flexible it is).
'Channels' are you friend as well ppl. I never used them a year or so ago, but they are very useful in keeping your colouring adjustable i found in another tut.
Damn. May of rambled on 
Another clear and explained tutorial by you. Niiiiiiiiiiiice. have a cup of 
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thanks for the kind words and the complimentary
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cool il have ago of it se if i like it
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Wow!
I've been using multiply all this time and its limitations are really starting to bug me..
Thanks for this, will try it out soon!!!
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man, they were bugging the hell out of me too >< STUPIDMULTIPLY
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This would probably help me a ton, if only I had Photoshop. T_T But great job!
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Whoah... You lost me a couple of steps in. The first couple, greyscale, back to RGB, cleanup, all steps I follow, the rest.... Kind of made no sense to me...
Oh well.
I'm sure if it was a bit more relevant to me I'd think it was as awesome as your last tutorial. ^_^'
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Hehehe! Thanks man. This is one that stuff that I'm looking for for a long time. Thanks for sharing
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Hehehe! Thanks man. This is one that stuff that I'm looking for for a long time. Thanks for sharing
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Can I just point out, you can press shift+ctrl+alt+u to convert to greyscale without having to switch to grey and back. You may have already known that, but still. Just wanting to help.
Nice tutorial, very helpful. Thanks!
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compare grayscale to what you said (which is desaturate), there's quite a difference between the two.
imo, grayscale looks nicer
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oh, i've never really noticed a difference. sorry.
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there's a sample in my description
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i learned about this a year ago at my former office!! *.*
when my boss explained it to me, i was like.. HUH?!?!?!?! 
i almost channel'd EVERYTHING!! 
this channel thing is great for limited color(s) offset printing (1-3 colors) and gives finer/neater results!!
you did a great job on explaining it and i feel like it's easy to understand (and it's in english! -- my boss spoke indonesian and i almost couldn't understand him! 
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"i almost channel'd EVERYTHING!!
you're crazy
thanks by the way ^^
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true!!
btw, have you tried to make a photograph channel'd? you should try it!! once you know the tricks, it's fun to do!!
it really could give a different and surprising result! click ctrl+L when you're at an alpha channel layer and have fun with the slider! duplicate that channel layer if necessary, have fun with ctrl+L and fill the selection with new color(s) in a new layer.
talking about all of this makes me wanna have fun with channel again
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Heh, I used a similar technique, but I never made a separate channel the way I did it. I just cleaned up the scan, clicked "Load Channel as Selection," inverted the selection, and made a new layer, then took a really big paintbrush and colored in the selection. However, your way keeps the selection in temporary memory, and it goes without saying just how much simpler it is to use EditΒ»Fill for lineart filling that than it is to do what I had always done. Thanksβyou just made my life ten steps easier! XD
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were you in grayscale mode when you did that?
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No, I usually do the "Desaturate" thing that some of the other people mentioned. That is, if I think it needs it, and I usually don't. I need to be less lazy. XD
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Well, it may be me, but this felt a bit too complicated for what you're wanting to achieve...
The method I use (just in case you want to give it a try) is the following:
Set to grayscale
Ctrl-Shift-L (for easy level major auto-adjustment)
Ctrl-L (for level fine tuning)
Wand set about 150 and without the proximity check (I dunno how it's called in english, is just so you select all the white in the image 
Now you have 2 options:
A) With white as main color, Alt-Backspace for quick fill (to have white)
B) del (if you want lineart over transparency)
Ctrl-Shift-I to alternate selection
With black as main color, Alt-Backspace for quick fill
Duplicate the layer, and do whatever you want with the original one (white filling, erasing it, whatever 
Set to RGB/CMYK/whatever (do it as the last step, 'cause working in grayscale is faster for the good ole' comp
Extra: some shortcuts just in case you don't already know them:
X alternate fore/background color
D "reset" fore/background color (black on white)
Ctrl-Shift-N new layer
Shift-backspace filling using foreground color and opacity/mode options last selected (Alt->backspace does a 100%opacity normal filling)
Hope this is somehow useful, as I didn't want to sound too itsy-bitsy or know-it-all
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I'm a shortcut maniac actually, but in tutorials I like to show menus for people who might get lost ^^
ctrl+backspace is the combo from heaven
anyhow, your method sounds good but there's such an "unknown" with the wand tool and a lack of precision that I rarely use it U_U
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An unknown? I'm not sure what you meant...
Anyway, with level adjustment you should be able to use a high enough value so no weird white outlines appear, but to each their method. I bet not two people use photoshop the same way
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you said it, photoshop is SUCH a flexible program (baffles me sometimes)
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Yep, it's impossible to know everything
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In your Step-1, it's as easy as doing "Image > Adjustments > Desaturate" for having a grayscale lineart, instead of converting the whole image to grayscale and back... much less processor use, and much faster
And, doing the things you mention in the last comment (changing colors of the lineart, or luminosity) it's almost the same with the "multiply" trick...
A thing you could try for having things like 1B is duplicating your color layer, and putting OVER your pencil layer in Overlay (or screen) mode, and mix those two layers. that will color the grey areas of the pencil, leaving white untainted... instant pencil coloring!
And, once you've done this, if you want to change your pencil weight as done in 1C, use an airbrush setting with different grey colours in Luminosity setting to higlight some parts... ^^
Once you've done this, you can flatten all layers in image... That's all for doing with the Multiply trick
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"A thing you could try for having things like 1B is duplicating your color layer, and putting OVER your pencil layer in Overlay (or screen) mode, and mix those two layers. that will color the grey areas of the pencil, leaving white untainted... instant pencil coloring!"
the problem with that is when you place your colors and shading underneath. it'll look funky XD
as for desaturate, I've edited the description to explain why I never use that method (I'm sure it'll work well enough though)
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Well, just in case you use both colors and shading in other layers best thing is groupping... you have to finish first, then duplicate the group with color + shading, and proceed as i said. It works! And, hey, sometimes, the funky looks are cool
And, yeah, i've noticed the difference between color mode conversion and desaturate...
As you may know, Pixels in COLOR bitmaps are stored the 8-bit RGB way: R8 G8 B8 (that's the 3 color channels you can see in photoshop). That means that for each pixel, it stores color information for each one of the primary colors (unless you work in CMYK, where it stores 4 colors).
In grayscale, it only stores 8 bits concerning to the Whiteness of the pixel, that is, luminosity. 0 -> black, 255 -> white
All grey shades, white and black have the same information in all color pixels, that is, R0 G0 B0 -> black, R255 G255 B255 -> white, R128 G128 B128 -> 50% grey
The Luminosity value of a color when converting is calculated by the average of the pixel values for each one of the colours, meaning that the average value between R, G, and B is put into the Grayscale value, so, it gives a lower value -> means darker.
Another way of giving the color value for a pixel is using Saturation, Hue, and Luminosity values for each pixel. A color with saturation 0 will be a gray shade, white or black. Hue determines in which point of the color spectrum is our color, and Luminosity affects to the brilliance of our color... seeing how this color system works is not easy at first, because we find that if we increase or decrease luminosity, it appear to affect the saturation of the color too... so it's tricky. When desaturation command, simply pick a colour and puts its "saturation" value to 0, without affecting the Hue value or the luminosity. This can appear a little lighter to the eye, but it's really the same color, with no saturation at all -> total grey conversion!.
Well, i don't know if anybody has read all this, but, if you did, and you're interested, thanks
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very nice description. I knew a bit about how the colors worked but its always nice to learn more. very interesting.
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"The Luminosity value of a color when converting is calculated by the average of the pixel values for each one of the colours, meaning that the average value between R, G, and B is put into the Grayscale value, so, it gives a lower value -> means darker."
I found that to be especially interesting. thanks for taking the time man!
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Yay! Thank you! Tutorials are so helpful!
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Interesting and helpful indeed. I do it almost the same way, with some differences though My tutorial For example I do not use the "invert" selection. I try it our later to see which one is the faster. It's always interesting of finding other ways to do things.
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Thats a cool techique you use there. Please teach me more! ^.^
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HOLY F**K!! Thats what you call it... I thought id have to freakin buy a scanner to colour my art... awsome.. and I could understand it!! *angels chorus* Now all I have left is how to colour... useing the new layer way so I don't mess up and all that magical photoshop crap, hopefully they encorperate the fact I did heavy lifting... if you know of any, send me a note!
(By the way.. Iam probably hands down the worst person to try and teach seeing I know nothing about the photoshop.. but you got THROUGH!!)
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HOLY F**K!! Thats what you call it... I thought id have to freakin buy a scanner to colour my art... awsome.. and I could understand it!! *angels chorus* Now all I have left is how to colour... useing the new layer way so I don't mess up and all that magical photoshop crap, hopefully they encorperate the fact I did heavy lifting... if you know of any, send me a note!
(By the way.. Iam probably hands down the worst person to try and teach seeing I know nothing about the photoshop.. but you got THROUGH!!)
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glad to know I could communicate it clearly enough!
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