Tag Archives: how to scan watercolour

The Secret to Painting Pen & Ink Artwork Digitally

How do you digitally paint traditional pen and ink artwork?

That’s what No Chipmunks sort of asked me after last week’s video about scanning artwork for picture books – https://youtu.be/yVVCHv62QsM

The secret is to clean up your scan, as I showed last week, and then convert the artwork layer to Multiply. Then the black stays black and the white becomes magically transparent.

You can also use layers with opacity set right down to add shade over the top in a non destructive way.

Have fun! Any other problems let me know

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How to Scan your Artwork for Perfect Picture Book Illustration

Scanning your own artwork can often result in a grey mush in the white areas of your illustration, making it look a bit lacklustre and lifeless. How to brighten it up and remove the grey edges?

Kathleen Crawford contacted me and asked: Do you scan your own images into photoshop? I’d love to see a video on scanning & more photoshop edits. Do you find that you need to erase the background of the watercolour paper (is it textured or off white) behind the characters?

Here is a video for her and for you. The secret of scanning lies in the quality of your scanner, the quality of your scanning software and the levels tab in your image program, like photoshop or Affinity photo etc.

All image programs will have a levels window to adjust blacks, whites and the colours in between. Get to know it. It is your friend