How do you ink in photoshop

[Drawnblud]

I'm very familiar with Photoshop, but I'll be damned if I can't figure out a effective and attractive way to ink my artwork. Usually, if I use the brush or pencil tool, it looks pixelated and poopy. I've experimented with the pen tool, but, that seems very time consuming. It would almost be easier to ink it regularly, but those pens are wicked expensive.
Can anyone help with this inking dysfunction that I am suffering from?

[ceberae]

I'm not sure what look you're going for, clean or rough inking, so I presume clean. For that, inking in Photoshop is quite hard. The pen tool is one way, but as you've already found, very time consuming. Actually, you may try using Flash to ink (if you have it) because its brush tool is far more forgiving (since it's a vector application). You can then save your artwork in a Photoshop-friendly format and go from there (colour, manipulation, etc.)

Personally, however, I find it much easier and much faster to ink traditionally. Otherwise, you may try cleaning up in a dark pencil (like 2B instead of HB, for example), then manipulate the contrast/levels and touch up any lines that look rough.

Hope this helps.

[bumskee]

I often just draw straight into photoshop with brush tool + wacom. Maybe that's something you can look into, otherwise pen tool as suggested and flash.

[thug_murder]

scan in and manipulate the black and white levels via photoshop and then save as various file format that can be imported into flash. In flash import and convert to symbol (purely for organizational purposes) and then doubole click on symbol to edit it select your image and goto modify>bitmap>trace bitmap
adjust options to you optimal vectorization and then get rid of everything but the black inking. You might have to delete, optimize, and/or smooth some of the vectorized lines but its a hellova lot faster than manualy retracing...
Plus you also have an inked and vectorized drawing that is infinetly scalable for profolio and/or demo reel or presentation... very fast and very efficient way of knocking out stuff, and if you need raster color effects like blur and softer shading and such just export out as a rastered image and edit in photoshop.

[Penguinx]

Since everyone else is offering non-PS related hints, take a look at all the comic art on my site (http://penguinx.org). It was all done with Painter IX which I find is FAR superior than PS for inking steady lines.

[Datameister]

Nice site you got there, Penguinx.

This page (http://www.walkthroughs.nu/index.php/Line_Art) is pretty helpful for Photoshop linework.

[Penguinx]

Thanks. I'm really comfortable with comic style illustration, but it's the color stuff that gets me. I'm trying to get better!

Nice link!

[Cinsev]

datameister: i was about to post that site too...lol great minds think alike except mine thought of it a month later :P.....that tutorial is pretty dang good.

[Datameister]

Sure is. I was just using the techniques I learned from it the other day.

[Drawnblud]

Thanks to everyone for the great tips...because of the Holidays, I haven't had much time to work on anything, but I have been experimenting. Thanks again!!!

[Chance.]

I would think that upping the dpi of your image when you scann it into your pc would fix the pixelation problem. It does take up more space on your hard drive though.

[HunterKiller_]

I use a technique that involves roughly going over all the lines with a larger brush then using the eraser to go back and cut everything down to size.
I've just looked at the tutorial on that link and that's pretty much the same deal.

[Ostrander]

This link (http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial/Digital-Inking-using-Photoshop/8698) is pretty helpful for those interested.

[Snarfevs]

I find hunterkiller's method optimal. cutting back with a hard eraser is also a great way to build up varied shapes.

[chickadee]

thanks for the link outstander, the site is very easy to follow.
here's the link without the frames:
http://www.farlowstudios.com/inks.html

[Lake]

if you have illustrator, just run it through livetrace. simple.