How to Digitize Traditional Line Work

Bringing your work from pen to screen

Hello fellow artists! Here is a quick tutorial on how to bring your inks from paper to screen in Photoshop. Many artists, including myself, prefer doing their inking traditionally, which can make your work feel organic. Digitizing your lines also allows you to color digitally, which gives access to colors and effects that can’t be done traditionally. Here is a quick tutorial on how to easily put your traditional inks on to a transparent layer in Photoshop.

Step 1: Taking a Photo

Assuming you already have your inks ready to go, it’s now time to take a photo or scan of your work. Having a scanner can make this step easy, but it is not necessary. You can get a similar result with a well taken photo of your work. As an example, here is a pomegranate drawing I did. I started with a sketch, then printed it out in blue so I could do my ink work on top. When taking a photo of your ink work, here are a few things to keep in mind to get the best outcome: 

• Make sure the paper is on a flat surface, tape down if necessary.
• Take the photo in a space with as even lighting as possible. Using sunlight is a great way to get an even lighting over your drawing, but you can also use a bright indoor light. It is okay if your indoor light is tinted yellow, since we will edit the photo in black and white.
• Put the drawing in the frame as evenly as possible – you can adjust in the editing stage, but it is best to set yourself up for success while taking the photo. Use the edges of the screen to make sure the edges of the paper are straight.  

Step 2: Editing

Now that you have a good photo, it’s time to make some simple edits! This can be easily done on your phone, but can also be done in Photoshop. The goal of this step is to make the dark line art stand out on a white background as much as possible. This will make it easier for Photoshop’s algorithm to detect the line art in the next step. For this example, I used Hue/Saturation and Levels adjustment layers in Photoshop to edit the photo.

Step 3: Isolating the line work

Once your image is in Photoshop, you are only a few clicks away from having your line work on an isolated layer. First, make sure the layer with your image is selected, then click Select → Color Range. Change the selection from “Sampled Colors” to “Shadows”. Then take the Fuzziness down to 0, limiting room for detecting grays. Adjust the range to select only the darkest lines in your image. I tend to choose between 55 and 60, but play around and see what works for you. When you are done, click okay.

Photoshop will select the color range you asked for. Make sure you see the “dancing ants” around your line art. Then go to Select → Select and Mask. This will open up a new screen in Photoshop. Scroll to the bottom to Output Settings and change Output To from “Selection” to “New Layer with Mask”.

Congratulations! You have isolated your line work!

Step 4: Clean Up

Photoshop has created a mask that hides everything but the darkest parts of the image, effectively isolating your line work. This is not perfect, and there are a few things I like to do to make the line art look better. First, create a new Levels adjustment layer and make the blacks blacker. Depending on the outcome, I may also go in and fill in some spots the selection missed on a new layer.

Step 5: Have Fun!

There is a lot you can do now that you have your line work digitized. This process puts your line work on a transparent layer, which makes it easy to color underneath!

You can also easily change the color of the line work. Create a new layer above your inks, changing its layer type from “Normal” to “Screen”. This will keep the color inside of the inks.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful! Please tag #scadhoneydripper with any drawings you make following this tutorial, we’d love to see it!

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The HoneyDripper is the Savannah College of Art and Design’s juried comics and illustration blog, dedicated to publishing, promoting, and showcasing the finest in student work.​