Welcome to my clean lineart tutorial!  To follow this tutorial you'll need a few basic things.  A) Adobe Photoshop, B) a sketch to work with, and C) basic knowledge of the rudimentary Photoshop menus (like being able to open a file would be good). Clicking the image icons throughout this tutorial will take you to a full sized image that illustrates the step next to it.

STEP ONE

To start, first, scan a sketch or pull one out that you've had stored away in a file somewhere.  If you're scanning one in, try to scan it in at 300-600 dpi.. it'll take awhile to scan, and it'll be a big file, but you'll have better quality to work with and it'll be easy to see those little fine lines your scanner doesn't want to pick up well. For the purpose of this tutorial, I'm going to pull out a sketch I already had scanned in. You should notice in this screenshot that I don't clutter up my workspace.. you're going to be using the pen tool, and sometimes that requires a rather clear path.. so try to close all but your layers window and your tool bar. You won't need anything else.

Notice that  when you open your sketch, it'll pop up in the "layers" tab as "Background" and it will be locked. If you feel you can make lines over it.. then by all means.. leave it as is, but I like to mute out my sketch layer to make identifying my clean lineart a little easier while I work.

STEP TWO

If you'd like to make it a little easier to do your lineart, go to the "Layers" tab shown in this screenshot, and right click your "Background" layer.. choose to "Duplicate Layer...". When the new window pops up, name the layer "My Sketch" and then hit "OK" you should then have two layers on your layer tab... "My Sketch" and "Background".  Grab your airbrush tool.. make it pretty big (100 + Pixels is good) and run over your old "Background" layer with white- yes, color the entire thing (don't color on your "My Sketch" layer).  This will make sense in a minute, I promise.

Once you've done that, go ahead and set the fill % of your "My Sketch" layer to 70%. It'll make your sketch become really light, but not so light you can't see most of the detail.

STEP THREE

Now, create a new layer above your "My Sketch" layer and name it "My Lineart" this is the layer on which your clean lineart will be made.  Notice in this screenshot that the "Background" layer is all white, the "My Sketch" layer is above that at 70% fill, and the "My Lineart" layer is above that. Does yours look the same? If not, adjust it, because none of this will work for you if yours isn't set up the way mine is.

Now comes the most important part of this entire process, so pay VERY close attention. Pick your "paintbrush" tool and go to the "Brushes" tab that should be docked in the upper right hand corner of your Photoshop window. Do you see it up there? It should be there by default along with "Tool Presets" and "Layer Comps". Click the "Brushes" tab and adjust your brush settings until they look like this:

Pay VERY close attention to the settings circled in red, but pay attention to the rest too.. you will need your pen to be set up identical to mine.  Now, there is SOME room for leeway... you can adjust the minimum diameter of your brush higher or lower depending on what you prefer.. I like it at 50%.. it adds enough difference to make your lines interesting, but not enough that when you shrink your picture down later you get a bunch of almost gray lines because they're so tiny... the same goes for the brush diameter.. if you're lining a large image with a high resolution, you can use a bigger brush.. if you're lining a smaller picture, you may want a smaller brush.. I've found that for smaller pictures 3-4 pixels works well, for larger ones 6-7 is nice of course you could also change your diameter and minimum diameter according to what you're inking too.. for hair you might want a brush that tapers a bit more and is thinner.. for sturdier materials (like wood, stone, or canvas) you might want a larger brush with less taper.. play around and see what works well for you.

It doesn't matter what color you set your brush too (as long as its not gray.. you wont be able to see the lines then!) but i prefer to use black or red.. because its easy to see against the muted sketch.

STEP FOUR

Now, choose your pen tool, and use the screenshot to the left to help you adjust your pen tool settings. You are now ready to start doing your lineart. The bulk of what you need to know, you now do, I recommend that once you find a pen setting you like that you save it as a brush preset so that you can always hop right back to it when you need to.  But there's one more step to this tutorial.. the dreaded.. CURVES.

 

STEP FIVE

Curves suck. It took me DAYS and several line arts later to figure out how to accomplish curves using the pen tool without it going haywire or ending up with big blocky curves. So I'm going to tell you all I know about them, starting with, they are a pain in the ass. The second thing you need to know, is once you get the hang of them.. they are no longer a pain, they're actually a blessing.

To make a curve, grab your pen tool (make sure you're on your lineart layer), and click once to start your line... now pick a spot farther down your curve, click, and HOLD.. some nifty little "handles" will come up... now if you move your mouse around you'll see that you have a curve forming.. move it around this way and that and experiment until you can make it do what you want it to do (follow your line curve)... PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE HANDLES.. when you end your curve (by letting go) you will want your handles to FOLLOW THE CURVE UP AHEAD... sometimes its impossible to make them line up, and if that's the case, then just let go, you'll have to start a new line... .. but if you can make them line up, let go, then click again further down the curve and watch your curve magically continue on in the right direction.. spiffy huh? the curve tool will remember the last curve you did and try its hardest to make your next curve match it while following the handle of the previous curve... if you don't make your handles line up.. your curves will go wonky... you can continue on this way indefinitely without having to start a new line as long as you make the handles line up and you don't run out of curvy lines ^_^

Another nifty trick is to know how far down the curve to put your second click point... for large gentle curves, you can pick a spot rather far down the curve, but for sharp curves or little ones, you'll have to place your clicks pretty close together... the curve tool tends to stress the bend point of your curve, and if you're not careful, it'll get very sharp.

To continue on to a new line, simply right click after you've placed your line and hit "Stroke path" a box will pop up.. make sure the "simulate pressure" option is checked, and hit okay.. your line will magically appear.. right click again and choose "Delete path" and start all over.. amazing how neat your lines can be huh? That's it.. that's all you really need to know.. just continue on your merry way making lines, and when you're done.. save!  Lineart just got a whole bunch easier than using little micron pens or the "pencil" tool freehand.

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I hope you enjoyed my tutorial, if you have any questions, feel free to bug me with them, I don't mind.  If you'd like to see the completed lineart for the sketch shown in this tutorial, click the thumbnail below!  My sketch was crappy :x.. but at least my lines are clean! LOL

 

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