not sure what you mean, but illustrator has "live trace" that could be used to make a path which you could use for a selection. probably overkill, unless you already have illustrator.
Thanks for the ideas… it looks like all those other bitmap to vector programs cost almost as much as Photoshop. So I guess I’ll keep searching…
Actually I’m sort of stuck inbetween the old version of Streamline (which worked okay for my needs) and CS2, which I don’t want to upgrade to.
The reason this former freeware program from 1998 was so great was it could quickly allow one to fill in shapes with color on a new layer by just clicking on almost any sort of rough drawing.
The artwork I color in usually consists of loose lines with lots of gaps. But this software could somehow determine which parts of the broken line constituted the shape. It wasn’t always correct, but it was about 90% of the time.
Anyhow, thanks…
"The reason this former freeware program from 1998 was so great was it could quickly allow one to fill in shapes with color on a new layer by just clicking on almost any sort of rough drawing. "
I get this gut feeling that you’re misremembering how you were working 10 years ago, or that you’re conflating the abilities of that forgotten app with what you were actually doing.
I’d like to see you link to a ZIP-compressed, layered PSD document that is an example of what you want to work on; one layer of the PSD would contain some text/arrow/circling annotations showing and explaining what you want to do. If it’s a big-arsed file, no worries; most of us have fast connections.
That might help someone here to offer workaround solutions.
Well here’s a quick example, since a picture is worth 1.000 words.
This jpg image consists of broken lines in a drawing.
<
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3090/2809425933_0c155df1d8_o. jpg>
With this missing program that I recall using way back in 1998, you could click on the space where the blue and grey colors were on the line, and the program would basically select the area and fill in a color on a new layer, even with the missing bits in the line drawing.
I can’t find any Photoshop magic wand that will do the same thing today. Seems to me it’d be very hand to have. It’d save me hours of redrawing shapes. This would be different from just doing a LiveTrace or a vector rendering…. since I’d like to keep the original line quality of a jagged, rough line.
Anyhow, thanks for looking it over.
It’d be cool if there was a magic wand that could do this.
jn
It’d be cool if there was a magic wand that could do this.
I certainly agree with that!
Here’s the workaround:
ALT+Click on the <Background in your Layers Palette to promote it to "Layer 0"; Set its blending mode to Multiply.
Create a new layer below "Layer 0" in the stack. ("Layer 1")
Create a new layer above "Layer 0" in the stack. ("Layer 2")
Working in "Layer 2", use a small brush to draw lines which appear to close the gaps in the lines in your original drawing in "Layer 0".
Now, with your Magic Wand selected, make sure the boxes marked "Contiguous" and "Sample All Layers" is checked in the Options bar. Default tolerance of 32 should be good.
Click with the Magic Wand tool within the area you just "closed in" with the Brush Tool.
Switch to "Layer 1" fill with your color of choice.
While you’re working, occasionally turn off the visibility of "Layer 2" to inspect your work. Repair "Layer 1" as needed with hand painting or erasing.
When you’re finished, trash "Layer 2" and flatten.
I just did a little playing around with your image, and the process is pretty quick and easy.
Is there a reason that Color Range won’t work to select everything? Try Select>ColorRange and the click on the white and invert the selection or click on a line and you may have to Shift-Click to get your blue.
In spite of the workaround I came upwhich kind of follows your description of the way you want to workI’d be more inclined to hand color areas instead. Probably a lot less work, and certainly a lot more feel-like-a-kid-again coloring book-style fun! Just work on a layer below the converted "Layer 0" which is set to Multiply blending.
🙂
I appreciate the attempts at workarounds… as I do all those tricks every day.
BUT… what I’m still curious about is WHAT was that program I once used in 1998 that allowed the selection of areas within shapes that were not defined by closed, complete lines.
I see in the example movie, where the artist had to do a workaround of the hair. But if he had used a selection tool from that missing program (which I can’t remember the name of), he could have just clicked into an area that was not perfectly contained by line, and it would only have partially filled the area.
I’m amazed that Adobe hasn’t explored this option… it’d save 1,000’s of hours of time for artists filling in linework.
Anyhow, this missing program that I recall was Windows based… and I think it came from Australia. It was just a simple basic draw & paint program… but it did have that very cool magic wand that could select broken line areas.
Thanks for you help…
jn
If I understand correctly what you are asking for, my answer is that a solution for you exists in Illustrator CS2 and CS3. The process would be to draw your art work, scan it, place it in Illustrator, run Live Trace to convert it to vectors, select the entire drawing, click on the Live Paint tool and make the selected elements into a live paint group and, finally, paint away with the live paint tool. The Live Paint tool has a dialog box which allows you to manage the gaps in the drawing. That is, specify the maximum size gaps to be ignored (consider the line containing them to be continuous).
In broad terms, the answer is Illustrator not Photoshop.
Paulo
Paulo,
please show the result of your strategy, as applied to John’s drawing
<
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3090/2809425933_0c155df1d8_o. jpg> (eventually after replacing the blue and the gray
areas by white using Photoshop Replace Color) by Illustrator. I couldn’t get reasonable closed areas for fill
because of the large gaps.
Best regards –Gernot Hoffmann
Well my experience in trying to fill gaps in closed areas has been that usually there are tiny, almost invisible gaps… which take forever to find.
That’s why I think Adobe ought to work on designing a ‘smart magic wand tool’… that could select imperfectly closed shapes.
I’d think that most digital artists spend a good deal of time coloring scanned line images.
Hence the whole reason for starting this thread… wondering if there were other tools that could do this.
jn
"I’d think that most digital artists spend a good deal of time coloring scanned line images. "
Just for perspective:
I’ve been using Photoshop since v 2.5 casually, and seriously since 1998.
I’ve colored scanned line drawings twice in my career.
The second time was when I was playing with your image.
Gerno
I doubt that I will get to trying the proposed method on that sample image this weekend. I can make a few quick comments, however.
Like numerous Photoshop tools, the success of Illustrator tools like Live Trace and Live Paint are very image dependent and some experience helps. Here are some comment on the three steps needed.
First, the Live Trace step must be done well. There are a boat load of parameters for this process. For the subject image my guess would be to start with a preset and the one I would choose would be comic art.
Secondly, once you make a live paint group you have to have automatic gap detection checked (turned on) and you choice of predefined or custom gap sizes specified. You will then see where the gaps are automatically found and fixed and the gap options dialog box will tell you how many have been found. If you like what you see you can just start painting. Usually, however it is an iterative process of painting some of the areas and then resetting the gap detection and painting again. At any point you can automatically close the paths (but you cannot go back), change the settings to auto detect even larger gaps and try again.
Third is the manual phase. If lucky you will have none of this. On the subject image, however, I can see that some of this is required. To preserve the artistic content of the original one draws a line in the very big gaps having no stroke or fill (invisible line)and then you use the live paint bucket. While the above sounds like a lot of work, it can go very quickly with many drawings.
JN
That’s why I think Adobe ought to work on designing a ‘smart magic wand tool’… that could select imperfectly closed shapes.
The Live Paint tool in Illustrator does this. It automatically detects gaps and lets you paint as if they were not there.
Paulo
I’ve had some success working with the new quick selection tool in this situation. It might be worth downloading the demo to see how you get on.
J
Thanks for the hints…
I take it the Live Paint and Live Trace both require something beyond Illustrator CS.
So if it’s a question of upgrading to the next Intel based chip and the accompanying software… it’d cost many, many $thousands.
I’ll look around and see what I could manage on Panther & a Powermac.
:0)
jn
Unless you have thousands of these drawings to color, to the point where doing all this research about how to optimize your time/effort/output equation seems like a good way to spend your time, I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.
Just get in there and start doing it.
phos, i think the point is he DOES have thousands of these to do! 🙂
John,
Yes, Live Trace and Live Paint were in Illustrator CS2, but if you want that function today I would certainly go with CS3.
Upgrading Illustrator, or even the whole creative suite, does not necessarily mean you have to upgrade your computer. It’s nice, but may not be necessary. Check it out, you may be OK.
If he has the suite he has to upgrade the entire suite. You can’t buy CS2 through legitimate channels any more and CS3 won’t run on Panther.
Bob
Yes, that’s the whole problem. It would call for a new Macpro in order to run CS3… and it’s not worth the $2500 it would cost… with additional costs.
So I’ll just stick with plain old CS & my good old Powermac for the time being, since it fulfills 95% of my everyday needs.
:0)
jn
