darkening lines of a hand drawing?

[media kat]

I have some hand drawings scanned into a computer that I want to clean up in Photoshop.I'm going to use the eraser tool to erase the smudges, though I want to darken the lines of the drawing without having to trace back over it with a pencil, pen, or paint brush. I played a bit by darkening the levels. Can anyone recomend anything else?

Thanks.

[station_two]

One easy thing to try:

Duplicate your background layer as many times as needed and set the blending mode of each new layer to multiply.

As an example, this is the background + 3 duplicate layers each set to multiply:

[JJMack]

Pregaps add a levels adjustment layer in multiply mode and adjust the prperties of the lavel or curve adjustment layer

[Noel Carboni · Accepted solution]

You're going to have some hand work as you have anticipated to get rid of the smudges and unwanted sketch lines.

Just some things to experiment with after that to find a scheme you like:

• Working at a higher resolution.
• Image - Adjust - Threshold
• Oil Paint with the Shine function set to 0
• Filter - Other - Minimum
• Filter - Noise - Median

Have fun!

-Noel

[Gernot_Hoffmann]

Noel, not helpful IMHO - I regret.

The OP is talking about how to clean up a hand drawing.

Image > Adjustment > Brightness/Contrast

Spot Healing Brush here and there

Why the heck an adjustment layer, as mentioned previously?

http://www.fho-emden.de/~hoffmann/storni13052011.pdf

p.3

http://www.fho-emden.de/~hoffmann/reydethule06102011.pdf

p.1

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

[Noel Carboni]

Gernot Hoffmann wrote:

Noel, not helpful IMHO - I regret.

Thank you for your honest opinion, Gernot.

I'll admit to having done some reading between the lines to anticipate media kat's needs, and I'll be interested to hear whether media kat agrees with your assessment. 

-Noel

[media kat]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

1.) Gernot, you suggested using Brightness/contrast, I cranked the brightness up and it got rid of a lot of the sketchmarks. I'm guessing that is because it is washing them out? Changing the contrast doesn't seem to do much. How does the contrast setting work in this case?

2.) Noel, just to clarify:

threshold to darken lines and clean it up?

Oil Paint - to remove smudges?

filter > minimum to clean smudges up?

filter > noise to clean smudges up?

[Noel Carboni]

Threshold to assign whatever grayscale value either to pure white or pure black.

Oil Paint to smooth lines and make them less "crunchy".

Filter - Minimum to make lines thicker.

Filter - Noise - Median to smooth crunchy stuff in a different way than Oil Paint.

I suggest you experiment and see how these things affect your image visually.

-Noel

[Vanessa3083254476cq]

Thank you! This is the first answer that helped.

[the_wine_snob]

Not sure if you have, or have access to Adobe Illustrator, but I think that this would be a good candidate for AI's Live Trace, with a Threshold of about 200. Experiment with the Threshold, until completely satisfied.

Hunt

[Noel Carboni]

Man, that almost makes me want to buy a license for Illustrator.

-Noel

[the_wine_snob]

Noel,

I cannot believe that you do not have AI. I spend most of my time in PS and Premiere Pro (with Encore thrown in), but when I need AI, I want my AI.

It's like After Effects. It sits on my Desktop for weeks, but then, I drag it out, and it does some really neat stuff. I would not be without either one, though I do have to brush off cobwebs sometimes.

Hunt

PS - in another PS thread, I bemoaned having to now upgrade my full suite, when I only need, say PS, but that DOES keep my AI, and my AE upgraded too, so it ain't so bad, really. I just like to complain...

[Gernot_Hoffmann]

Bill,

your graphic in #8 is quite convincing, but perhaps we should clarify

media-cat's objective.

For instance these scenarios:

a) a B/W scan of a page with images or hand drawings. Increase the

contrast and remove dust&dirt. This can be done by Brightness/Contrast,

followed by Spot Healing Brush.

Contrast is adjusted until black parts are black and Brightness is reduced

until plain paper appears (marginally) with just  R=G=B=255 or L=100.

b) a drawing should be converted into a B/W vector graphic.

Your (Bill's) result is quite good, but the method doesn't work at all if

we expect as a result something like a technical drawing.

Noel, sorry for the somewhat harsh reply. I thought it had been clear

that the OP did want to preserve the appearance of a hand drawing.

Meanwhile I'm not sure about.

Just for entertainment, I would like to present an advanced example of

Illustrators Tracing function (based on distinct Munsell palettes):

http://www.fho-emden.de/~hoffmann/casamunsell24062012.pdf

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

[the_wine_snob]

As the AI Vector file will not attach, I just Placed the AI file into PS, and did a Save_As PNG.

Just keep the AI, and all should be as desired, unless I am missing something.

You seem to be indicating that the OP wants a particular workflow, where perhaps a better one exists. Now, the biggest stumbling block that I see is the access to AI. If one does not have that, then it would take a lot of such scans to justify its purchase. That is why I did not "champion" the AI route, but only mentioned it.

Sorry that I did not focus on the stated, desired workflow, but others had covered that in good detail. I merely suggested a different workflow, based on the end-result that I had interpreted.

Thanks,

Hunt