Coloring your scan

How this poster is made

1. On paper. The drawing in black ink: the line, the lettering if you drew it, any hatching you want kept. No color on the paper.
2. The scan. Scanned at 600 ppi and cleaned until the ink is pure black and the paper is pure white: a black and white image.
3. On the computer. Color under the line. Then shadow, texture with your brushes from Exercise 4, and refining. This is the poster.

The line never changes after the scan. Everything you add goes on a layer under it.

You color your own drawing, as far as it has got. If the drawing is not finished, scan what is on the sheet today and color that. Before Tuesday, scan the finished sheet and move your color layers under the new scan.

Scan it to black and white

1. Scan the drawing at 600 ppi, grayscale. If the sheet is bigger than the scanner glass, scan it in two halves with an overlap and join them with File › Automate › Photomerge.
2. Save the scan untouched as lastname-p2-scan.tif. If the clean-up goes wrong, you start again from this file. Never scan to JPEG.
3. Straighten and crop. Crop tool (C), draw the straighten line along the sheet's edge, then crop to the drawing.
4. White point. Add a Levels adjustment layer. Pull the white input slider left until the paper is pure white.
5. Black point. On the same Levels layer, pull the black input slider right until the ink is solid black. Stop when the thin lines are solid, or your hatching closes up.
6. Clean by hand. Paint out the specks Levels left with a white brush. No filters: a speck of dust and a stipple dot are the same size.

Color it in Photoshop

The line sits on top. The color goes on a layer under it.

1. Name the scan. Open your clean scan. In the Layers panel, double-click its layer and name it line.
2. Set it to Multiply. Use the menu at the top of the Layers panel. Now the white of the paper covers nothing, and only the black line shows over whatever is underneath.
3. Add a layer under it. Cmd Shift N, drag the new layer below line, and name it color.
4. Fill one shape. Click the line layer, pick the Magic Wand (W), and click inside a shape. Click the color layer and press Alt Delete to fill it. Do the next shape.

If the whole page fills, the shape has a gap in its line. Close it with a black brush on the line layer.

Color it in Illustrator

1. Place the scan. File › Place, your clean black and white scan.
2. Turn it into shapes. Window › Image Trace, preset Black and White Logo, tick Ignore White, then Expand.
3. Make it paintable. With the line selected, Object › Live Paint › Make.
4. Fill one shape. Live Paint Bucket (K): pick a color and click inside a shape. Do the next shape.

If a color spills into the next shape, the line has a gap there. Close it, or work in Photoshop.

Colors

Use your poster's colors, as your best guess today. You can change them on Tuesday; nothing is final yet.

Hand in

• The layered file: lastname-p2-color.psd or .ai, with the line layer on top and every layer named.
• A JPEG of it.

Grade

Same day, on the 0, 2 or 3 scale. The six exercises share one grade and the lowest is dropped.

• 2: your own drawing scanned to a clean black and white image, the line on its own layer on Multiply, every shape colored under it.
• 3: all of that, and the color is clean: no white along the line, no color outside its shape, one named layer for each part of the poster.
• 0: not handed in, or color on a drawing that is not yours.

After

Bring this file on Tuesday, a full working day: color, shading, texture and refining. If your drawing was not finished today, scan the finished sheet before Tuesday and move your color layers under it.