Line work in photoshop

[Darby Edelen]

[Airbrush Art] “Maybe this can’t be done.”

This can definitely be done.

Duplicate your line art so that you can maintain your source. Desaturate your duplicated layer (cmd-shift-u, ctrl-shift-u)Then apply a Levels adjustment to it, if you’re not familiar with this adjustment it should become readily apparent what it does if you play with it a bit (or you can bug me and I can talk about it in more detail). When you’re applying your Levels adjustment keep this in mind: when we’re done the black areas will be visible on the layer we’re going to apply the mask to, white will be transparent and anything in between will be semi-transparent.

When you’re done with your Levels adjustment hit cmd-I (ctrl-I) to invert the colors, white will become black and black will become white. Now select the entire layer (cmd-A, ctrl-A)and copy it (cmd-c, ctrl-c). Now select the layer you want to apply the mask to and go to Layers > Layer Mask > Reveal All. Now click on the Channels Tab (next to the Layers tab in the layers pallette). Select the last entry (should be “Layername Mask”) and paste (cmd-v, ctrl-v). This should apply the copied mask to the layer.

Sorry if I left anything out, I don’t have photoshop open and I’m trying to relate this from memory. There are probably at least a dozen other ways to accomplish this, but mine is my favorite (;

[Airbrush Art]

Thanks for the imput but all I got was to have a negative form of my line drawing copied to a different layer.
Did I do something wrong?

[Darby Edelen]

You must have pasted the ‘negative’ onto a layer instead of into a layer’s mask.

The part where you add a Layer Mask to the layer and select that mask’s channel (in the channels tab in the layers palette) before you paste is of supreme importance =)

[Airbrush Art]

I am not getting this.I have done this over & over with the same results.I have a negative form of my line art .
I am trying to achieve my line art that has a transparent background.

[Airbrush Art]

I follow the steps many times,I even had someone else go thru the instructions.We cannot figure this out.
We have questions ,such as ,I do use levels all the time but why do I need to adjust a B&W line art ? Its already very black.
Is there another way to achieve a transparent background on my line art?
Thanks

[Darby Edelen]

[Airbrush Art] “I do use levels all the time but why do I need to adjust a B&W line art ? Its already very black.”

I assumed that your line art was from a scan, in which case it most likely is not very black. For this to work your lines must be pure black and your background must be pure white (with some gradation allowable between) before you invert the colors.

When you have your inverted layer you copy and paste it into a new layer’s mask channel (it must be masked before you can do this, Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All). Note that until that layer has something in its RGB channels you won’t see anything (a transparent layer masked is still a transparent layer), so you could fill your new layer with red and then paste the black and white image into the Mask Channel.

If you’re not familiar with Layer Masks this is probably where you’re having trouble.

[Darby Edelen]

Oh, the other little detail that I must have left out is that like any other layer: you can only paste into the mask channel if it’s visible.

[Airbrush Art]

Thank you for the help.But I have to say ,I guess I am not following the directions properly or not understanding.
One of my art directors gave me this info which works.
Open the image,copy it to a layer,take magic wand tool & click on 1 of the areas of the background,go to select,go down to similar,now every part of the backgroung is selected,then hit delete.Now there is no background & I can add a color to a different layer & put it behind it to show thru the line.
Thanks again

[Darby Edelen]

[Airbrush Art] “Thank you for the help.But I have to say ,I guess I am not following the directions properly or not understanding.”

I’m sorry if it’s some part of my explanation that’s confusing. I tried my technique last night and it worked fine. Do you use layer masks regularly?

[Airbrush Art] “Open the image,copy it to a layer,take magic wand tool & click on 1 of the areas of the background,go to select,go down to similar,now every part of the backgroung is selected,then hit delete.Now there is no background & I can add a color to a different layer & put it behind it to show thru the line.
Thanks again”

This does work, but it doesn’t give you as much flexibility as a Layer Mask, erasing/deleting the data means it’s gone, masking it means it’s not visible. I’m not a big fan of using the magic wand, but even if you do decide to use it you can use Layer > Layer Mask > Hide Selection when you have your selection instead of hitting the delete key. This gives you more power to flesh out subtleties in your mask (you can use levels on the mask to increase or decrease opacity of a certain part, or you can use any filters on it… Gaussian blur comes to mind). It’s all about maintaining your source imagery and giving yourself flexibility.

I’m curious, did you get to the part where you can see the mask channel you created on the new layer? At that step you’re pretty much done.

[Vincent Rosati]

It sounds like you want to take B&W line art and turn the ‘line’ into a negative shape that will allow a color background to show through?
As wuzelwazel described, there are many ways to achieve this in Photoshop.

You might describe the following as ‘destructive’ methods, as you’ll actually delete or permanently alter the layer.
Masking, on the other hand, can be non-destructive, as you retain all of the image data – but it’s more complicated.

Delete to achieve composite
-Open the line art in Photoshop, duplicate the layer, and hide the original background layer as a backup.
-To delete the ‘line’ you will use the Wand tool. Enable the wand tool and deselect ‘Contiguous’, this will select all relevant pixels in the document instead of only the connected shapes. Otherwise you would need to Wand+Shift click to add all of the disconnected line parts into your live selection.
-Delete the selection
-Paste your color background into a new layer, beneath the line-art layer.

I think the ‘Contiguous’ setting was your original issue?
Once you have created your live wand selection, you might want to look at the main menu under ‘Select’, and experiment with modifying your selection using options such as; Feather, Modify, Grow, etc.

OR \\\

Multiply to achieve composite (very easy with nice photographic qualities)
-Prepare your Photoshop file with you color background on the bottom layer and you B&W line art on the top layer.
-Click the line-art layer and Select/All. Next, click-Image/Adjust/Invert.
-Finally, back to the Layers palette. With the inverted line art layer, change the blend mode from Normal to Multiply.