taking pencil to the next level...

[SlayerXtreme]

ok so.. im not very experienced with photoshop beyond a little image altering and whatnot...

anyways, ive been wanting to take my pencil drawings and clean them up in photoshop, but im not really sure where to start.. i tried to once but the lines were uneven and messy. im going for webcomic quality kind of stuff. if anyone has any advice i would very much appreciate it.

[daveneale]

It takes a good while to get used to inking in photoshop...1st off just practice;). One thing that may help if you need clean lines immediately is using the pen too and getting used to the bezier curves. You can control the line weight in the brush menu (right click when you have the brush selected) and apply this when you apply strokes to the path you created with the pen tool (just click simulate pressure after you click apply stroke). It's not as versatile as inking in illustrator but I may be a usefull tool.

[GriNGo]

Draw VERY well, scan the drawings and then adjust them to look darker (like ink) using the level tools. I wouldn't suggest using the pen tools in Photoshop, too slow and cumbersome.

[SlayerXtreme]

i guess im not sure what you mean by VERY well, lol. i try to make my lines as clean as i can when i draw it, and it looks good on the paper, but the problem is when i scan it in, the eraser marks and whatnot still show up, and makes it a pain in the ass to work with.

[Peyotero]

When I scan one of my drawings:
-First, I draw the final lines dark enough (HB to 2B pencil), while the first sketchy ones are in H.
-After scanning, I clean the picture with Levels, trying to make unwanted lines or spots to fade. I use the White Spot eyedrop to make sure the paper is completely white.
-Then I apply the Dust & Scratches filter, to remove tiny spots.
-Finally, if there are some remaining bad spots, I remove them with cloning stamp.
This is a somewhat tiresome procedure, but I am able to avoid the inking step when drawing comic pages.