My Colouring Process Notes

Sketch Image
Pay attention to Perspective. Ink the Image set light sources etc. Scan Image at DPI 600

Line Art
Clean Up Line Art - Set to Gray Scale - Adjust Levels to clean up as much as possible - Erase and Touch Up - Convert to BitMap - Convert back to Gray Scale Once the line art is totally black Go to the Channels Tab, Select the line art icon on the Gray layer. Press Shift-Command- I to Invert the selection, then copy and paste into a new document of 15x9.75 inches. When you paste the Lineart into the new document, name the newly created Layer Lineart

Set Image Size (15x9.75 for Comic Art, DPI 600)

Colouring Process
Blue/Grey Fill Back Ground - This makes it easier to see where you have put down colours. Build the background - Use what ever seems right will usually require multiple layers Lay Down Flats - Create a new Layer for each major colour section (i.e Skin Tones etc) Lay Down Shading Select Airbrush Tool from the Toolbox and set the Brush Setting to: Brush pressure - 30% Brush diameter - 175% Hardness - 0% Spacing - 25% Create shading layer for each Flats layer, set them as clipping masks in Darken mode Use a big Fuzzy Brush and set it to Darken and 20%-40% opacity and Layer the shading up

At the end of the process, as an optional adjustment, use the Gaussin blur tool to smooth the rendering (you may want to use the Magic Wand tool and select all the shading to keep it with a harder edge.

Lay Down Textures - Use a new layer for each Texture set the layer to Overlay. Lay Down Highlights - Create Highlight layer in Screen or Lighten mode, name it Soft Highlights - For soft highlights, lay down white at 10%-15% opacity with a soft brush - Once you have created all the soft highlights, select the Gaussain Blur tool and adjust to taste. - Create another Highlight Layer in Screen or Lighten mode, name is Hard Highlights, lay down white at 20%-40% opacity with a Hair Brush - Use a Small Fuzzy Brush set to Linear Dodge Mode and Opacity 30-50% draw a line down the shadowed side of the images.

Finishing Up
From the Lineart layer select Channels and hold down CTRL key (this will select the line art) Create a new layer above the colours and fill it with black, This will make the lines heavier

Background Effects Layer - For effects in the background make sure the layer is placed below the character layers Top Effects Layer - Create an effects layer for glow effects etc. - This could include Glows, Fogs etc, etc Fine Tune the Shading - Add a new layer, fill purple (dark blue/Purple) set to multiply and then set Layer Opacity to 20%-40% - Then Use a large soft brush with opacity 20-50% and brush white over the areas closest to the sun. - * it is possible you want to put some effects over this layer to make them pop even more! Line Glow/Knockouts - Do Line Knockouts on the Face/Skin of people, clear objects and possibly glowing - Select the Line art, Make a duplicate layer (called Linear Light), hit Ctrl-H to hide the lasso lines. - Set brush opacity to 50% and colour over the lines only. Desaturation - Flatten the Image, Select all, Copy, then undo (brings back the Layers)

Create a new layer set and new layer and copy the art onto it Now hit Ctrl-Shift-U on the layer (this will make it black and white) now set the opacity to 20-75% depending how bright or dim you want it. * You can mask areas a further desaturate to make some objects seem further in the background..

Hue/Saturation - Create an adjustment layer and set it to Soft Light - Adjust the Hue to set mood/tone (Blues for sad/gloomy, Red for hot etc, etc)