Welcome to Xd's Tutorial for using Photoshop to paint!

1.- the begining: A picture

Everything starts with a scanned image. A pencil traced image, without neither shading nor other techniques. About the format, it is not important, only need to be Grey-scale, or black & white. There are techniques to do clear scannings of images. The important stuff here is that the image has the traces clear enough. An image talks better than words, and happens that this image should be known for you... :)

Notice: The original image i used was a lot bigger Link to see a bigger version. Not obstant, the original i used was scanned at 150 d.p.i. So that image is still little in comparison with the original i used to make all the stuff.

Okay some of us may be that are not those speciallist doing perfect traces with the pencil, or just our pictures are too sketchy. The following part is optional, though helps a lot to give the pictures "anime" aspect.

The next step is open the menu image then seek for Adjust and then select automathic levels (From now on, the menu selections i do, will be signatured this way: Image->Adjust->Automathic Levels.

Doing this, the image will convert into this. The idea is increase the contrast of the image to make appear the lines clear.

As you can see, the traces are more clear. Normally this would be enough to start to paint, though, As you can see, there are still shadows which can ruin our work.

1.1 The tracing with Photoshop.

There are techniques which can allow you to use the scanned picture itself instead of retracing it. Not obstant, as you can check, the image is very dark in some areas, in other is more clear. That may be because of the paper you used, or because other reasons, but the fact is that we still cannot use this image.

Here starts one of the "nightmares" this little P-shop amateur had to "suffer" (it is not hard, but requires a really huge amount of patience, in fact nothing is hard, but you need patience to do it).

Quick learning of the anchor point tool:

1. Select this tool (Quick key P)

2. click to draw a point over a line in the picture, a point appears over that line.

3. move the mouse to other point OF THE SAME LINE and click AND KEEP PRESSED the button of the mouse

4. drag the line you have done until it adjust to the original line of the picture When both are alike (it is, the traced line corresponds to the original line in the picture) leave the mouse. Keeping pressed allows you to modify the curvature of the line. If you want straight lines, click in a place, then click in another, and the line between is straight. This picture uses lots of curved traces.

5. To close a "polygon" done with this technique, click over the first point of the edited trace.

6. May be you have done a trace which corresponds... say for example, to that line of the lower tigh near her undies, that is not a CLOSED polygon! How to do? To start a new trace and neither erase nor continue the previous press the CTRL key, and click out the polygon. All the points of the polygon WILL DISAPEAR (not the line, which still will be visible). This vary from a photoshop to other. in Pshop 5, it is CTRL+click. In PShop 6 is just Escape key to start another trace (don't press Escape twice or you'll lost your traces!)

7. You may connect to "abandoned" traces clicking a point of the new trace over an extreme point of one existent trace. Take care of the curvature.

Okay, now you have done a line. The complete stuff is: Do lines until you trace completely the picture. (Patience!!!)

1.1.1 I've finished my traces (Ufff!)

Very good! Now comes a trick i discovered.

Make sure that the selected brush is "Radius one", the smallest (menu brushes, Window->Show brushes option) And that you are in a CLEAR LAYER! (Layer->New->LAYER)

Press the right button with the Anchor point tool selected. It will appear a submenu which will allow you to do some things. Choose Contour Traces then choose the brush tool. I Assured to have a new layer for not to "destroy" the scanned image, and a radius 1 brush to make sure that the "traces" will be thin. The tool you chose in the Anchor pint right click menu has the active brush in that moment, so, assure that the active brush is the thinest (Or it will destroy the picture)

After doing this, the image shows more or less, this aspect... Which is good, but not the perfect it would be.

The trick is:

1. BEFORE TRACING Increase to the double the resolution (It is, the image is 320x320?, then, make it be 640x640)

2. 

   Instead of using a brush of radius 1, use a radius 2 to TRACE the picture. To do a radius two brush, use that menu and and press over the black triangle, select "New brush" and use this options.

3. Decrease the resolution to the original, and voilà! The image has a perfect edge ready to be painted!

4. Now that you have traced the image into a "Clear" layer, click the option "Preserve transparency"

This is the result: Better huh?

1.2 "My traces in the scanned picture are clear enough, i think"

Congratulations for that. ^_^ you are more careful than me!. The main purpouse of tracing the image is get clear edges to paint, if you have clear edges in the begining, Then you will do a thing. You will duplicate the layer, and do a thing.

There is an option in the panel "Channels" (Window->Show Channels) "Load channel as selection" Which can "select" the white areas in the picture. Doing this, we will select the white areas, and then we will "delete" them (Press the key DEL) making them be transparent.

It is that way to keep the black lines on the picture, and we will "trace" the picture really fast.

After this, Tick the option in the layer menu "preserve transparency"

The main idea of this process is: GET IN A CLEAR LAYER ALL THE MAIN LINES OF THE PICTURE

The idea is to get a "cell" only with the lines. A transparent layer in which the only things in it are the lines of the picture. And protect that layer against "accidental traces" with the "preserve transparency" option.

2 "I have the traces done, now what?"

2.1"Flat spaces are always a good base to start"

Okay, now that you have the traces done, you are going to start to paint the image with the tools that Photoshop provides.

Our target now is to paint the image with flat colours, that is, each part of the picture shall be painted with Just one colour, our objective now is get something similar to this->

but following this rules (it will simplify our work a lot).

1. Each colour will be in an only layer, that is, each time we want to change the colour, we will change to a new layer. For example, the skin will go into a layer, the hair will go into other, the jacket will use its own layer, and the like. Each colour will have assigned its own layer. And, of course, every layer will be UNDER the "lines" layer (the main with the picture).

2. Whenever we finish a layer, we will "preserve" its transparency.

3. To paint use the (Quick key B) Brush tool. Don't use the "pencil" tool, it will give ugly jagged edges. Select a good size, it will accelerate your work.

4. To help you painting, it is very useful the tool "Polygonal Selection" (Quick key L) If you don't see it, choose the tool and keep pressed until you see it. Don't use the "Magic wand" tool, it sometimes gives really bad selections. To paint, make a selection over the area you want to paint, paint and after you have finished, deselect the area. (Quick Key: Ctrl+D)

5. Paint with the basic colours of the image. That is, if the skin is "flesh colour" choose something neither very clear nor very dark (the clear colours will be for the "highlights" and the dark colours will be for the "shadows"

6. DON'T FORGET TO PROTECT THE TRANSPARENCY of the layer It is an important detail which will help us a lot

After that process is done, the image may seem a little "simple" or "ugly" DO NOT WORRY it is only painted with flat tones. Things will improve from now on.

3 "Shadow don't make me upset... i don't want to hear you...." (Shading)

Once we have done the main painting of the image, we will start to shade it. Many people before they do the scan, in the picture, they trace too "Shadow traces" that is, lines which will help them to paint the shadows correctly. Good? bad? i've never done... Anyway. The process to do the shading is important. It will improve the looking of the image a lot. A good shading will give our pictures an impresive result. (watch my pictures ^_^UUU)

The shading is almost a "common sense" stuff. Every of us instinctively knows where we should add the shadows... away from lights. So, to paint the shading, we MUST Decide a "point of light" in the picture, and act acording it. It may be hard, at the begining, but is the key to a good shading.

1. At every layer we have done, we will "repeat" the process of "selecting-painting", but in the areas we consider to be in the "shadows" (it is, acting accordingly with the picture, and the point of light we have decided, take for example the arms, away of light are dark, near the light are more clear than the base colour.) (Sorry for the example, it includes some "more advanced" techniques...)

2. Remember i've been insisting you in "preserving the transparency"? The reason is this: when you paint with flat colours, you define the area in which the colour has "sense". Preserving the transparence, helps to avoid that in the "shading" process you exit from those areas. So, paint the flat colours carefully, and the shading process will be easier.

3. Repeat the process you have followed for the shadows, for the highlights. That is, select the areas of the highlights, and paint them with more clear tones than the base colour. (see the example again) and after you have finished it, the image will be looking more or less like this. (impresive huh?)

Alternative process:

1. Well, is almost the same, though instead of using the brush tool, you can use the "airbrush" tool. The basics are the same, though the effects are completely different. This time is not useful the Selection tool, but the "preserve transparency" stuff. The effect of painting with airbrush would be this. Softer edges... All is a matter of likings!

4.-Details and more details.

Designing the details is almost the same of designing all the other parts of the picture. Requires patience and imagination. Do it following the explanations i have given you here and you will have more or less the knowledge enough to do it on your own. (in fact, there are so much tricks that i could not explain all here... XD XD XD