Help needed please! New to illustration on Photoshop

[TrishNolan]

Hi all,

I have a texture/outline that I want to use over the top of a drawing. It's a chameleon, and I want to add the scale details.

I have drawn out the texture in pastel and scanned it in. I need to take the texture's background away and also be able to change the colour of the texture, but I am getting stuck with masks/etc. I've got it to the stage where I have the texture as a black outline, but when I put it over the chameleon drawing I can't change the colour of it. Can anyone help?

Thank you

[Ged_Traynor]

@TrishNolan can you post a screenshot of the Photoshop interface with all the pertinent panels opened

[TrishNolan]

Thanks I will do, can't do it until I'm back at home this evening - thanks for responding

[TrishNolan]

@Ged_Traynor Hi I've added an update with the steps I followed and a screenshot, any help would be gratefully received - thanks in advance 🙂

[TrishNolan]

So for further info I followed a tutorial where the steps were as follows:

Opened the scan of my drawing in photoshop

set it to greyscale (image-mode)

increased contrast in (image -adjustments- levels)

go to Channels press control and select box (image goes wavy, only black is selected?)

go back to layers and duplicate our layer

add a mask to the new layer

press ctrl + i on mask layer to invert

go to first box in new layer and paint it black, then click control + backspace (now both boxes in new layer are black)

right click back on the second box (mask layer?) and select Apply layer Mask - now both boxes merge into one. 

that is the stage I am at - she then says to colour this is very simple:

she copies the part of the texture she wants over into a new file (i'm using default photoshop size)

then she locks the layer

then she clicks on the 'background colour' square on the left side (the bottom square behind the top one), selects a colour and presses 'ctrl + delete' and it changes the design/texture to the colour she has chosen

This does not happen for me. Nothing happens when I press 'ctrl + backspace' and I cant seem to change the colour of my drawing/texture?

[Ged_Traynor]

@TrishNolan can you upload the actual scanned image

[TrishNolan]

Just the scan or the scan open in photoshop?

Sent from Outlook for iOS<>

[Ged_Traynor]

Just the scan

[TrishNolan]

Here you go, I've also added the background character that i want to add the scale detail to - I'd like to be able to colour the scales so that they coorespond with the stripes below if that makes senes?

[Ged_Traynor]

The scanned image doesn't match the chameleon scale wise

[TrishNolan]

Hi, yes I know, I'm planning on splitting it in places and adjusting 

[TrishNolan]

Hi @Ged_Traynor, is there anything you could recommend I search for in terms of tutorials on this? Thank you

[Ged_Traynor]

@TrishNolan if you want to isolate the outline of the drawing, unlock the layer and then double-click on the layer to bring up the layer style dialog and then move this slider to the left

Add a levels adjustment layer and drag this slider to the right

Select the original layer and then go to select > colour range, select the black with the eyedropper tool and set the fuzziness to 200, then click OK

Drag the levels adjustment layer to the trash, hit ctrl + j to copy the selection to its own layer, select the new layer and then ctrl click on the layers thumbnail to highlight the selection, hit shift + backspace to bring up the fill dialog and choose colour for the content and then just fill with the desired colour

[TrishNolan]

Thank you! I will give that a try - thanks very much for your time - are you in the UK? If so I'd like to send you one of my books as a thank you?

[Ged_Traynor]

No, I live in Ireland, but thanks anyway 👍

[TrishNolan]

Hi, I followed your instructions and have taken a screenshot to the stage I'm at, I chose orange but it is still black? What am I doing wrong?

[TrishNolan]

sorry wrong screenshot its this one @Ged_Traynor 

[Ged_Traynor]

@TrishNolan you need to hold down the Ctrl key and left mouse click on the layers thumbnail to make an active selection, then hit shift + backspace to bring up the fill dialog