Stupid scanner...

Jewa_FtA · Post by **Jewa_FtA** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 6:49 pm

does anyone else have issues when they scan in their pencil art? i have this huge problem that the light from the scanner reflects off the pencil making everything lighter and plenty of shading invisible. my solution was that i switched to ink.. but the only thing i have is a ballpoint pen and two sharpies. sometimes it's too thick and you cant shade the way you do for pencils. i've always wanted to get photoshop on my mac, but it's jsut too damned expensive.

so basically, if anyone has sharpie/ink techniques to share, that'd be great. or a solution to the pencil problem. gah.

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Faub · Post by **Faub** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 7:12 pm

If you're using OSX you might be able to use the GIMP instead of Photoshop. Phalanx has some problems getting X for OSX to work right, though. You would have to ask her about her experience.

As far as scanning pencils, A good bet is to draw darker than you think you need to. I've been using an 0.5 mechanical pencil. This scans pretty well but some of the detail gets lost during the scan. You should just expect that and move on. If you draw using the recycled wood pencils you will get a really dark line. The problem is they lose their points quickly and are very difficult to erase. Avoid hard graphite pencils. You can tell the graphite is hard by the letters 2H printed near the eraser end. If possible you want HB is pretty good but you need to work at getting the lines dark. You can get art pencils that are 2B, 4B, 6B or darker. The number denotes softness (and darkness). 2 is a harder graphite than 6.

As far as inking goes, I've messed with it a little bit but it all depends on your style. I won't consider inking my regular drawings yet but if I do a manga style or chibi characters I can ink them quite easily. They're basically outlines anyway.

Look for an archival quality pen, not a writing pen like gel pens or ball point pens. Pigma Micron is good. I have a couple of those. I just finished a Christmas card using an ultra fine point Sharpie that turned out well but that was on posterboard and I worked rather large. I didn't add a lot of detail to it either.

There is an Ink thread you should read started by godoftarot and if you go back through the archives there is a Smooth Lines thread that was started in early 2002 that has some good info.

As far as techniques to use, go over your lines twice (Yarpsdat mentioned this). It makes the lines thicker so they scan better. It's also a good way to vary the quality of your lines.

http://www.ponju.net/index.php?showtopic=30446
An thread from a month or so ago about inking tools from Ponju.net. Psychobob has some good info.

That's all I've got. Next!

Hank · Post by **Hank** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 10:07 am

Scanning pencils is most likely going to look fairly soft and sloppy, at least more so than scanning inked work. One thing you might want to watch out for is how you are scanning your stuff. Your scanning software probably has several options, such as black and white, color photo, and line art. Line art would probably be your best bet.

Then of course you can always adjust your levels in Photoshop to make your pencils darker. The problem is, any smudges or other things on the paper might get darker too. Or you could use a program like Adobe Streamline to convert your work into vector. Or you could trace your pencils in illustrator. I guess it just depends on what programs you have at your disposal.

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 2:07 pm

http://autotrace.sourceforge.net/
This is the linux version of Adobe Streamline. It's just a commandline tool to convert raster graphics to vector. It can output to SVG and I think it can also do SWF, but I don't know how well that works. Autotrace doesn't work well on pencils, though. It handles ink MUCH nicer and will even clean it up in spots. Highly detailed ink drawings are problematic, though. You would need to scan at 600 dpi or greater to make it look remotely good.

You can also get windows binaries of autotrace.

Phalanx · Post by **Phalanx** » Wed Dec 24, 2003 4:41 pm

faub wrote:If you're using OSX you might be able to use the GIMP instead of Photoshop. Phalanx has some problems getting X for OSX to work right, though. You would have to ask her about her experience.

The problem was not really with MacGIMP, but the support app you needed to run MacGIMP.

MacGIMP requires either Apple's X11 or XDarwin (Freeware) to run (In layman's terms, these two applications allow you to run a multitude of applications meant for Unix). Mac OS 10.3 Panther comes with X11, so if you have that you're fine.

If you don,'t however, there's XDarwin. Unfortunately, XDarwin is notoriously difficult to install. The best method to do so is a program called Fink which is one of http://www.sourceforge.net 's many projects.

MacGIMP is sometimes available free http://www.macgimp.org or if you pay a nominal download fee (to cover bandwith costs, the file is HUGE).

I believe you can order it in CD form too. The price is usually only that of the shipping. After all, MacGIMP is freeware.

I have MacGIMP working on my Powerbook now, but I find myself still using Photoshop, mainly because MacGIMP doesn't support tablet. Other than that, it's certainly capable of doing a lot of what Photoshop can.

Hank wrote: Scanning pencils is most likely going to look fairly soft and sloppy, at least more so than scanning inked work. One thing you might want to watch out for is how you are scanning your stuff. Your scanning software probably has several options, such as black and white, color photo, and line art. Line art would probably be your best bet.

Not always true. The garbage-in-garbage-out rule applies here. If you want clean-style work, keep your pencils clean and learn to use level and curves.

If you have Photoshop, there's a 'cheat' filter called 'Poster Edges' that might help.

Jewa_FtA · Post by **Jewa_FtA** » Thu Dec 25, 2003 3:01 pm

thanks for the advice. unfortunately, my poor excuse for a computer can't really handle huge programs, and i have an older version of os x, so none of the handy new stuff is on it. it was hard enough getting an FTP thingy on it. so i dont use my computer except for scanning in the comics... i rarely edit them once they are on my screen. i'm planning on spending some holiday money on some better supplies, maybe even some markers. thanks everyone for the help, i take it to heart.