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Fixel Algorithms
Fixel Algorithms
Participating Frequently
April 27, 2019
Question

Processing of Scanned / Photographed Pen & Paper Drawings in Photoshop

  • April 27, 2019
  • 6 replies
  • 1468 views

Hello,

Wondering if there are users who use Photoshop (Illustrator as well?) to process drawings made by a Pen / Pencil on a paper?

Maybe even just writing text on a paper.

Do you encounter issues to clean up non uniformity of the Paper?

How do you handle that? What's your workflow?

Could anyone share the Scanned Image and the Processed Image?

Thank You.

      This topic has been closed for replies.

      6 replies

      Norman Sanders
      Norman Sanders
      Legend
      April 28, 2019

      In order to judge your work you might  check it at 100% of size. At that setting, this is your result:

      Using the Blend If command can clean up much of the (I assume) unwanted tone, maintain the character of the pencil texture and avoid a heavy-handed effect, will take you this far. The balance will require brushwork.

      Fixel Algorithms
      Fixel AlgorithmsAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      April 28, 2019

      Here is an example to the suggested idea.

      I took the image from Smoothing out rough lines? (Details in post)​ by chewingcow​.

      This is the result:

      What do you think about this result?

      Could anyone share another image to test and compare to Photoshop?

      JJMack
      Community Expert
      JJMackCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      April 28, 2019

      I see a lot of dialog example ideas and different results in the thread you posted a link to. Mainly about creating vector shapes. Though no vectors files were posted. Vectorizing that image is a much better ]approach then your raster png file.  Which could use a lot more cleaning when you look ate you png file actual pixels.

      Perhaps you should try to revive that thread.  A vector version will be much cleaner and can be scaled to any size you need.  Only small scaled down versions were posted in that thread, 

      A cleansed up raster version may might to be traces with a program and have good paths created.   Your png will not be traced well.

      clean image can be traced quite well

      JJMack
      Semaphoric
      Community Expert
      SemaphoricCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      April 27, 2019

      A good reference for this is David Blatner's book ​Real World Scanning and Halftones.

      Norman Sanders
      Norman Sanders
      Legend
      April 27, 2019

      I have found that some flat bed scanners have inconsistent light transmission across the scanner head (probably related to scanner cost.) The variation is small but, when oversized art is scanned in sections to be assembled later, this consistency can be obvious and a headache. To get around that problem there is a handy maneuver that eliminates the problem. Spin the second scan.

      Illustration of art scanned in two passes, with an overlap (shown in red) to assist in aligning the separate files in Photoshop.

      To repeat, the variation is across the scanner head.

      The left column shows that, if the art is moved laterally after the first scan, in order to position the second scan the midpoint of the art to be butted will be scanned by a different part of the scanner head and show the tonal or color variation where the two halves joined.

      The right column shows the spin. After scanning the first half of the art, spin it so that the area of the scanner head handling the center of the art is the same for the second scan.

      (Side note: This alert is the result of a lifetime of exacting graphic arts camerawork where periodically the camera copyboard to film plane were checked for a common distance of the four corners using a steel rod with micrometer tip. Even lighting was confirmed regularly by meter reading not at the copy board but at the film plane (via a check of the ground class) to account for light falloff that included art-to-lens and lens-to-film. (It resulted in overnighting at the periphery of the art very sightly.) Our cameras took film up to 30" held in place with vacuum to assure flatness. In spite of all that, just to be safe, if the art was oversized, we used the method shown above. )  So much for the. old days.  

      JJMack
      Community Expert
      JJMackCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      April 27, 2019

      Photoshop clean up scanned drawings - YouTube

      JJMack
      Trevor.Dennis
      Community Expert
      Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      April 27, 2019

      How big are the drawings?  Too big to fit in a flatbed scanner?

      If yes, how do you light the drawing when photographing?

      Are they line drawings or do they have shades of grey, or are they coloured?

      Can you paste an example to this thread?

      Fixel Algorithms
      Fixel AlgorithmsAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      April 27, 2019

      Trevor.Dennis  wrote

      Can you paste an example to this thread?

      Actually the purpose is to see some examples of drawings digitized by a camera or scanning and the result of processing them in Photoshop.

      The idea is to see if there is a room for improvement by utilizing other approaches.

      Are there users on the forum which use Photoshop for those purposes?

      D Fosse
      Community Expert
      D FosseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      April 27, 2019

      Photographing them will give much higher quality and more control. With a proper setup, and a good flat-field macro lens (like e.g. the inexpensive but excellent Micro-Nikkor 60/2.8), there should be very little need for any post-processing at all, Photoshop or otherwise. Set the desired white point and black point, and you should basically be done.

      Put the drawing on a flat surface, and place a mirror on top. This lets you position the camera at a perfect right angle: when you see the lens at dead center of the viewfinder, it's good.

      Put two point light sources at 45 degrees to each side, as far away as practically possible to ensure even distribution. Point lights minimize the possibility for reflections (unless you want to go all the way with cross-polarized lighting).

      Many camera tripods have a built in 90 degree boom function nowadays. An old enlarger can be rebuilt to make a splendid repro stand.

      If you need accuracy, a ColorChecker Passport is not all that expensive. Every patch has a standardized Lab value that you can replicate in Photoshop (although you'll probably just need the six gray patches. I wouldn't worry about the color patches).

      Yes - a flatbed scanner is much more convenient. But it can be difficult to control clipping points and tone curve, and general quality will be much better by photographing. It all depends on your requirements for final quality.

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