Scanning and emailing A3 artwork

uncle fester · 08 October, 2010, 11:24:39 AM

Yes - basically! There are three sliders, the middle of which gives you more control over the grey tones. I scan in greyscale as I like leaving in some pencil lines to warm up certain panels.

EDIT. Oops, he beat me to it...

chilipenguin · 08 October, 2010, 01:37:19 PM

Not sure if this is the best place to ask, but since people are discussing resolution and what not, what is the optimum resolution when exporting a fully coloured/lettered/print ready tiff? I'm going with 300dpi at the moment but should it be higher than that? Typical comic book size btw.

radiator · 08 October, 2010, 01:40:05 PM

300dpi is fine.

Dog Deever · 08 October, 2010, 02:12:36 PM

Cheers radiator- I can see what you're saying very clearly just by looking at those comparisons.
To date I've been using 'Curves' and get much the same result as the Threshold thingy, except not as clean. It's not satisfactory at all and I have to spend hours cleaning stuff up. The adjustment layers looks the biz, but horrendously complex. I need to do some research. I like the drawing, inking bit but all this computer wizardy just makes my learning mentalism kick in. I can see it's worth learning, I just have grave doubts about my ability to learn it- I go all ADHD with it! I need a slave to do this stuff for me!

radiator · 08 October, 2010, 02:19:09 PM

Curves are great too, but they're quite advanced and it takes a lot of practice to get your head around them.

Levels are a lot simpler and are perfect for cleaning up linework and gray-toned stuff. Don't worry about adjustment layers and masks for now, just hit Cntrl+L to get the levels box up and you're away.

TordelBack · 08 October, 2010, 02:35:04 PM

Quote from: radiator on 08 October, 2010, 02:19:09 PM
Curves are great too, but they're quite advanced and it takes a lot of practice to get your head around them.

Testify, brother. Wait, this isn't the Underwear thread?

Dog Deever · 08 October, 2010, 03:03:18 PM

That's great, Radiator- just been pissing about with this, what a difference it makes. I went with the adjustment layers in the end. I read up a little on it and jumped in. It's nowhere near as hard as it sounds. If I can do it, anybody can.

Cheers

Spaceghost · 08 October, 2010, 03:11:24 PM

I'm going to have a go at this tonight. I'll let you know how I get on.

Cthulouis · 09 October, 2010, 12:43:14 AM

I have some stuff that I will be needing to scan in soon, so will be experimenting with this advice. Thanks guys!

I have a few questions, if someone would be so kind.

1. It has been mentioned that JPEGS compress an image. WHat does this mean?

2. Up until now, I had been planning on using the following method to clean up my work, and was hoping people in the know could explain to me why it is a terrible idea (as it inevitably would be, I rubbish at computer things), so that I don't have to make the mistakes myself.

What I was planning on doing was scanning it in at a pretty big resolution, picking out all the inks with the colour picking tool, filling the section with black, inverting the selected area, then cutting all this to give me my whites. Then I would scale it down to a more reasonable resolution.

Any thoughts on such an idea?

PS I use GIMP rather than any expensive photoshop thingies.

Emperor · 18 October, 2010, 05:06:33 PM

Jim's done a bit of a follow-up here:

http://clintflickerlettering.blogspot.com/2010/10/sunday-surgery.html

radiator · 18 October, 2010, 06:40:04 PM

QuoteJim's done a bit of a follow-up here:

...to basically say "I AM RIGHT!"

I still say that there is no need whatsoever to convert to bitmap - if someone else is colouring your work, and if they insist on doing it (though frankly I still don't understand why it's necessary in this day and age - there are other ways of getting selections) then fine, but there's certainly no need to apply it to linework that isn't even going to be coloured.

I learned Photoshop from a photography perspective, and I was trained to preserve detail in the image at all costs, and to me this philosophy carries through to illustration. I still believe that threshold and/or bitmap harms the linework irreparably - especially on fine brushwork and crosshatching etc.

Quote
What I was planning on doing was scanning it in at a pretty big resolution, picking out all the inks with the colour picking tool, filling the section with black, inverting the selected area, then cutting all this to give me my whites. Then I would scale it down to a more reasonable resolution.

I wouldn't advise this. I don't know GIMP, but in Photoshop I correct the linework with Levels, then select the linework by Option-clicking (Cntrl on PC) the 'blue' channel thumbnail, then filling this selection with black on a new layer (and hiding or deleting the layer with the original linework). This will allow you to colour 'underneath' the linework.

Quote
It has been mentioned that JPEGS compress an image. WHat does this mean?

Each time you save a file as a JPEG, the computer 'squeezes' the data to reduce the file size, but this process can screw with the quality of your image. Saving in other formats, like TIFF and PSD/PSB, results in larger file sizes but retains ALL the detail in an image.

Cthulouis · 18 October, 2010, 09:37:15 PM

Thanks Radiator

Cthulouis · 26 January, 2011, 05:01:12 PM

Hi all, this seems to be as good a thread as any to ask this question on.

I have a "quick scan" function on this computer that I find quite useful. Unfortunately it seems to have a problem scanning stuff at anything over 300dpi. It has options for higher resolutions, but when I try to scan using these the little timer goes on forever, the scanner starts making noises but then stops, and nothing ever happens.

I'm pretty sure this programme has worked at higher resolutions in the past, and resolutions of 300dpi or lower do work. So, any idea what I'm doing wrong?