Stupid Questions!!!!

[Eveningkiss]

OK not sure where to post it so.. figured what the hell. Here would be my first stop and if nothing else the admins would delete it or send me to my room without my sketch book for the night. SOOOOOOOOOOO I decided to try a different type of paper for a new project a friend "Handed" me... she wants me to make her new tarot deck and design her book cover ect. WELL To get warmed up I figured I would draw my friends to get warmed up for the project and to test the paper. Paper draws well but here is my issue... Scanning... not so good. I just scanned in a quick sketch i did of my friend Spider and you can see the grain of the Linen paper CLEARLY. I don't have photo shop or paint shop pro or anything like that readily available for at least 2 more months because well... moving and all my stuff is boxed up *sigh* Does anyone know any tricks to getting rid of it or should i just say screw it and stop using the linen paper and go back to using the normal 32lb paper and poster board i normally use?

I know STUPID question but i would like to hear real artists thoughts on this.

*hides in the corner*

[TASmith]

I'd say yes, but I'd say you're going to have a hard time with any scanner without photoshop to touch it up. Then again the linen fibre might look nice, depending on the style of your cards?

Teachers say there's no such thing as stupid questions.

We say that to be nice.

In general it's stupid to ask a question one already knows the answer to. The exception is in a trial, if you're a lawyer, in which case it's foolish to ask any question you don't know the answer to.

As a teacher, the dumbest questions I face are when I begin to answer and see the student isn't listening at all. Why ask, if you don't want to know?

[Eveningkiss]

The sketch looks nice in person...just not over the scanner... scanners have a tendancy to make it look bad.

[Gloominati]

had similar problems with scanning my stuff. What helped was to disable all the "optimizing" features of the scanning program . For example my HP scanner used to sharpen up all images, making pencil lines and structures look REALLY hard and scratchy.

[CCThrom]

Yah... there may be settings on the scanner itself you can mess with before giving up on the paper. There may be contrast or value settings you can tweak.

Based on your sketchbook I'm guessing the work is in pencil... if so, make sure you try scanning in grayscale mode (my scanner calls this mode "black and white photograph"). For some reason, many scanners look worse when you make full color scans of grayscale work.

[The Crazy Dude SRD]

I've found success in tweeking up the contrast and tweeking down the brightness with my scanner... but be gentle with the contrast... it can cause funky things.

If it's because the linen paper is too thin, putting some paper behind it might help with unwanted textures.

I hope that helps :)

-Shawn

[Elwell]

Using your scanner software's advanced settings (they all have them, they're just sometimes hard to find), you should be able to adjust exposure, levels, color balance, sharpening, etc, even without image editing software.
For simple image editing, try Picasa (http://picasa.google.com) or Adobe's on-line image editor at Photoshop.com (https://www.photoshop.com/).

[Eveningkiss]

i usualy scan using gray scale. it always looks better that way. Ive tried ajusting all the values even the grain of the paper.no dice. I guess i'll have to wait until i get into the house and can unpack my software so i can get to my copy of photoshop =(

btw... did anyone even..like spiders sketch despite the grain......

[CCThrom]

Ah... I didn't go far enough into the sketchbook. Next time, maybe provide a direct link if you want feedback on a specific image. You will probably also get more directed and specific advice if you post "Spider's Portrait" in the Critique section.

In any event the portrait has a very nice feel to it... you've got a lot of potential there!

I can see why the linen paper is a problem, and very likely the scanner will not be able to compensate for it. That's a fancy printer or writing paper, not designed for drawing. The very rectangular blocky weave is probably going to be distracting no matter what you do, but more so because of your soft-touch pencil. If you were drawing in ink, or making heavy lines with the pencil you might be able to get away with it. I recommend getting some decent drawing paper.

As some general advice for where you are now... you're doing just fine but there are some areas you can push. Aside from the usual blablabla about anatomy and practice, I think you specifically need to push your understanding of LIGHT and SHADE. You are attempting to model light/shade transitions (which is good!) but you are not going far enough. The result is a kind of flatness to your subject's features. Another part of that is that you are using heavy outline and smooth modeling in the same image and the 2 approaches are working against each other.

My recommendation is to look real hard at some simple objects with directional lighting. Put a few eggs or pieces of fruit or boxes (anything simple that won't distract you with a lot of surface detail) on a desk or table with strong directional lighting. Do some studies concentrating on observing the light and shadow. Try some studies where you use NO outline, and push the contrast. That is to say, make the dark areas darkER than what you currently are doing. If you try this but don't really like it, remember... these are just learning studies... you're not stuck having to draw this way.

Good luck with it!