Cel Style Coloring

Before you start you will need to create a clean inking on paper and scan it into photoshop at around 200 dpi. (that's the size I fine easiest to work with)

Open your document in Photoshop. We are going to start this piece by cleaning up some of the imperfections you will have when you scan things in. Even a clean inking will usually have variations in color when you scan it because of the folds and waves of the paper. Using levels will take your image, and extract only the whitest whites and the darkest darks from your image. It is under the image menu as shown.

Pull in the two arrows shown until you get an image that is clean. The arrow on the left controls your darks. Pull it in until your blacks are crisp and dark (but not pixelated!) The arrow on the right will make things whiter. Pull it in until your whites are white, but your black lines are not washed out.

Double click on your layer if it is named "background" with a lock by it. This will bring up the layer properties. Rename the layer drawing, inking or outline... whatever helps you to remember what that layer is. Set the layer properties to mutiply as shown.

We are now going to create a layer for the base colors of the image. You can create it by clicking on the righthand arrow and selecting the new layer option.

Call the new layer "color" and drag it underneath your drawing layer.

Making sure that you are on the color layer, select the paintbrush tool. This is the tool that we will use to fill in color for this image.

The color you choose as your foreground color will be what the paintbrush uses. Choose a color that is dominate for each area and start coloring carefully inside of your lines. You can use a large or small brush, depending on how big the area you need to fill in is. When coloring, I like to view the image at 100% because it is easier to see if you made any mistakes.

Now I have run into a problem. I want to color my wings white, but I can't see where I am painting! (the background is white too!) To fix this, I create a new layer called background, and fill it with grey paint. (make sure to drag it underneath your drawing and color layer as shown) With this darker color behind the image, I can now see where I have painted white.

I continue painting until I have filled in all of the areas of my character so that they stay within the lines perfectly. We are now ready to move onto phase #2...






I am so totally ready for phase #2!