Soft Style Coloring

Before you can start, you will need a drawing. It does not matter if the drawing is inked or is still a pencil sketch; both types will work for this style of coloring. For a crisp look you'll probably want to ink, for a softer, more artsy look you may way to just leave the pencil lines as are. Make sure that when you scan your drawing into the computer you scan at a higher resolution. (200-300 dpi is usually good)

Open up your sketch or inking in Photoshop. Under the image menu, select brightnesss and contrast.

Adjusting the brightness and contrast will get rid of extra "noise" in your picture. Turn the brightness and contrast up until you get a nice clean image. Be careful not to go too high, otherwise you will get pixelly edges.

Now that you have a nice looking image, go to the layers menu. If your layer is named background with a little lock icon next to it, double click on that layer. Rename it to "drawing" "outline" or whatever will help you remember that that layer is the drawing. Change the option box that says normal to say "multiply". This will allow you to color underneath your drawing.

Multiply is a function that says that the layer will only darken the things beneath it. Since white is the lightest color, these areas will not show up. Blacks and greys will be strengthened. Don't understand? Just try it and you'll start to get the concept.

Now I have created two new layers and have dragged them under the drawing. The second layer is blank and is called "color". The third layer is called "background." I have used the paint bucket to fill it with the main color of my background, and of my whole image.

Making sure that I am on the "color" layer, I use the paintbrush tool and start to color in my image. I color everything with flat colors. Make sure that you get all of the areas of the drawing with the color you want; a clean color layer is important. Shading will take place later.

I have now colored in all of the drawing using flat colors. I got into all the little crevices using smaller paintbrushes (not airbrushes). All of the colors are on the color layer.

Now it's time to prepare for the shading. Create a new layer above "color" but below "drawing" and call it "shadow." Use the eyedropper tool and sample the color that you would like to start shading. You can sample the color by clicking your mouse on the color while using the eyedropper tool; if you've done it right, the color should appear as being the foreground color in your tool bar (the one on top)

...now click on select/color range... Prepare yourself to be astounded.

Now a box will pop up that will highlight all areas of your picture that have that color. Adjust the slider until you have a nice clean selection. NO extra grey or jagged edges should show! Hit ok.

Zom! All of that color is now selected. You can shade without going out of the lines! Make sure that when you start shading, you are on the "shadows" layer.

Can you handle... Part #2?