Colored pencils woes.

Godoftarot · Post by **Godoftarot** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 6:13 pm

All right, I have a small problem. I work with colored pencils when I color...and I'm pretty good, considering I've had not one scrap of training. But when I scan it in, and shrink it down (I almost always have to) the picture blurs and the shading effects are mostly lost. Anyone know if there's anything I can do for that?

LennyZ · Post by **LennyZ** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 7:26 pm

Well, I'd try scanning at a higher DPI and then shrinking it down. It seems you lose resolution when you resize them.

Colored pencil is hard to deal with. Personally, I'd say go colored pens or CG, but if that's not your preference then nevermind.

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 8:04 pm

It looks to me like you have the same problems I have with pencils including the smudging and loss of texture. Sorry to tell you but your drawings are always going to look different on a computer than they did on paper. That's why it's so common to see ink drawings. The ink translates to other formats better than textured media.

Yes, try scanning at high DPI. If you shrink a high DPI image you get a better result than scanning at the size you intend to post. Your computer will do a better job choosing colors for you than your scanner will.

I'm not sure what effect levels or curves will have on the color but you might try tinkering with those effects the same way you would with a pencil or ink drawing. That would clean up some of the smudges and you might even be able to use dodge and burn to lighten and darken the colors a bit, post-scan.

You work in a different media than I do so you'll have to experiment.

Godoftarot · Post by **Godoftarot** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 4:33 am

Whooo. That gave me whiplash. ^^
How high should I raise the DPI? It's already at 300 and it scans slow as could be. Of course, the scanner is about six years old, the poor thing really needs to be put to pasture.
I really don't know any programs that do CG too well, or at least I don't have any, and I'm really not sure how to do it. I'm sure as a fellow artist you, like me, feel there's a certain way things need to look and I don't know if I can produce that feel any other way. Only watercolors, really (and those scan in nicely) but I don't have the time or money to learn how to use them and learning on your own is tough.
As for colored pens...I'm just starting to add ink to my regular black and white stuff so the scanner picks it up better...and they're...hard to control? I can't explain it. Plus the pencil leaves grooves where I've erased and the pen likes to follow them. Eek O.o

Prism · Post by **Prism** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 10:17 pm

faub wrote: I'm not sure what effect levels or curves will have on the color but you might try tinkering with those effects the same way you would with a pencil or ink drawing. That would clean up some of the smudges and you might even be able to use dodge and burn to lighten and darken the colors a bit, post-scan.

I agree with this; I was able to get very rough pencil pass-able (to me~) playing around with Levels and Brightness and Contrast. Could I see one of your raw scans to see what you mean, godoftarot?

Godoftarot · Post by **Godoftarot** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 3:22 am

I don't currently have anything that has been touched up, but most of what I have scanned (including the little picture of my avatar which comes in a larger size) suffer from the blurring. Of course, some that I have have retained most of their texture, but they're also pretty large. But then...I didn't shrink the pixels too much on the one I'm talking about, either...yee. --;