Blue Guide Lines

[Odd Man Out]

Ok, here's a question I have, and I think it's one of those things that I should've really figured out how to do by now, but for some reason it's stumping me.

I want to make the blue lines disappear on the paper I'm using. I use Paperport to scan the images into the computer, and then work on it in Manga Studio Debut 4, although I still work on paper for the most part as I haven't become confident enough with a tablet to actually do much with it. I know a lot of people sketch in blue and then ink over it. I tend to draw in pencil, ink, erase, and then use greyscale pens before porting into Manga and putting in the text.

So does anyone use the programs I use and know how to do it? Does anyone know the technical name of it, so maybe I can try to find it on the programs?

[Fiona]

You need to make sure you're scanning not in colour, not in greyscale, but in black & white only. You'll end up with a bitmap file that only contains black and white, and you'll lose the blue. Unfortunately, you'll also lose your grey tones. If you want to use greyscale pens to shade your stuff, don't use paper with blue guides, because it will be hard to get rid of the guides without also damaging or losing your greys (you can remove the blue lines post-scanning in Photoshop, but it's kind of a pain in the ass).

If I were you, I'd put the blueline paper underneath a blank page and use a lightbox to draw your panels according to the guides, then ditch the blueline paper. Then you'll be free to use the grey pens and scan in greyscale without worrying about the blue lines.

[PaulLavallee]

I would also recommend doing your grey shading in Manga studio. It's much easier to correct mistakes.

[Chris]

You need to make sure you're scanning not in colour, not in greyscale, but in black & white only. You'll end up with a bitmap file that only contains black and white, and you'll lose the blue. Unfortunately, you'll also lose your grey tones. If you want to use greyscale pens to shade your stuff, don't use paper with blue guides, because it will be hard to get rid of the guides without also damaging or losing your greys (you can remove the blue lines post-scanning in Photoshop, but it's kind of a pain in the ass).

You really do this? Ugh, I hate it when I get b&w only scans. Why not greyscale or color? Really, all you have to do is scan in color, open photoshop and, select the blue channel and convert it to a greyscale image - voila, no more blue lines.

[violenza]

Really, all you have to do is scan in color, open photoshop and, select the blue channel and convert it to a greyscale image - voila, no more blue lines.

this is typically my process as well. your base art stays as robust as possible, and you can edit out any blue lines fairly simply with a levels adjustment or 'Replace Colour' with white. I also find this method works great for using finished pencils as final "inks".

[Fiona]

You need to make sure you're scanning not in colour, not in greyscale, but in black & white only. You'll end up with a bitmap file that only contains black and white, and you'll lose the blue. Unfortunately, you'll also lose your grey tones. If you want to use greyscale pens to shade your stuff, don't use paper with blue guides, because it will be hard to get rid of the guides without also damaging or losing your greys (you can remove the blue lines post-scanning in Photoshop, but it's kind of a pain in the ass).

You really do this? Ugh, I hate it when I get b&w only scans. Why not greyscale or color? Really, all you have to do is scan in color, open photoshop and, select the blue channel and convert it to a greyscale image - voila, no more blue lines.

Well, I don't do it anymore because I don't work that way, but that's what I was taught to do by other artists and by one fairly traditionalist editor. He was intent on having the inks as super crisp bitmaps, no greys. I never use channels but you're probably right about that being the best way... I don't know if Manga Studio has that though?

this is typically my process as well. your base art stays as robust as possible, and you can edit out any blue lines fairly simply with a levels adjustment or 'Replace Colour' with white. I also find this method works great for using finished pencils as final "inks".

I use levels adjustment on pencils too, but I don't find it that great for getting rid of blue lines without making the final thing higher key than I'd like. With "replace colour," unless it's a really clean, clear scan, I'm often left with leftover bits of blue/grey... that's why I like to lose the blue in the scanning process, especially if I have a big stack of pages to do. I scan everything really hi-res though so it doesn't look lame.

[violenza]

this is typically my process as well. your base art stays as robust as possible, and you can edit out any blue lines fairly simply with a levels adjustment or 'Replace Colour' with white. I also find this method works great for using finished pencils as final "inks".

I use levels adjustment on pencils too, but I don't find it that great for getting rid of blue lines without making the final thing higher key than I'd like. With "replace colour," unless it's a really clean, clear scan, I'm often left with leftover bits of blue/grey... that's why I like to lose the blue in the scanning process, especially if I have a big stack of pages to do. I scan everything really hi-res though so it doesn't look lame.

aha! I'll give that a go next time... i generally scan at 600dpi@100%. maybe I'll go higher, like 900 B&W, then scale down, see how that works out. it's neat trying new processes, almost always walk away a bit smarter in your methodology.

[Brian Guay]

And as an other thought on this topic, if you're going to try the light box method maybe just flip the page around and the lines will show up that way.

Bri

[Scott Dutton]

Just another voice, and my work is pretty traditional in execution. Still do pencils, lettering and inks on bristol.

If you do your blue lines light, you won't have much problem dropping them out post-scan. The problem is when you get heavy with them. These days I only do my lettering guidelines in non-repro blue. Another issue is that most non-repro blue pencil leads are waxy and they will resist ink if put down too heavily. Go to erase the pencil after inking and some of your ink will lift away because the blue prevented the ink from soaking into the paper fibres.

If you are heavy with the blue, scan as RGB, then use the Image>Adjustments>Replace Colour command in Photoshop to isolate the blue to desaturate and lighten it to nothing. You'll have to fiddle with the thresholds to make sure that the ink work doesn't take a fade as well.

1200 dpi is a good scan res for pencils and inks. I scan my pencils in greyscale as an archive. I also scan inks in greyscale as well. 1200 dpi will give you good depth on the linework so that when you increase contrast to get crisp black edges and white whites you're not losing smooth edges on fine lines (dropouts and jaggies). Then when I have something that LOOKS LIKE good black and white I will convert to true black and white, using a 50% threshold. If you've judged the contrast on your art right, you should see little to no change after the conversion. This method allows you complete control over the conversion and saves time.

I do archive the raw greyscale scan, and the b&w version at 1200 dpi. Saved as PSD or TIF (with LZW compression), they're not big files by today's standards.

Then, without changing the resolution, I'll resize the art to published size (down from 11x17 to 7x10, for example). After that, downsampling to 600dpi which is where I do colour work. I use the alpha channel method in Photoshop to hold the linework, colour in CMYK (RGB can get pretty unnatural looking) on layers, then recombine the layers and paste in the linework. This is a common method that Quinn Supplee of Poison Frog published years ago on the net, and Mark Chiarello also showed similar in the DC Guide to Colouring and Lettering.

All this assumes press output. You can certainly drop the res/size for online stuff, but you may collect the work in print someday, so I prefer to work at high res.

- Scott

[LegendWoodsman]

You need to make sure you're scanning not in colour, not in greyscale, but in black & white only. You'll end up with a bitmap file that only contains black and white, and you'll lose the blue. Unfortunately, you'll also lose your grey tones.

Yup, you can scan in superhigh-resolution and it'll be a smaller file size that scans quickly for the crisp black lines. When you convert it to greyscale the lines will smooth out (anti-aliasing).

[Odd Man Out]

Actually, I made the leap into shading on the computer. My wife bought me a tablet, so I've been playing with it, so now I scan in black and white, thus eliminating the blue guide lines, and then shade in Manga Studio. Thanks for the help everyone!