What Size Should I Draw My Comic

Okay so allow'south get this function out of the way. I adore and respect digital artists, but for me there is zilch better than drawing and inking my comics on trade and true bristol newspaper. Every artist is different so if this isn't your matter that's cool, simply this post is probably non for you. But if y'all're like me, and you like drawing traditionally, so at some bespeak you're going to need to scan in your comic art and get it set up for print and or coloring. Luckily I take a few handy tips to go you set upwardly and doing just that. Now to exist articulate I use Adobe products for virtually all of my resizing/digitizing needs so deport that in mind. However many of these tips should work with just near any decent photograph manipulation package.

Before y'all Scan…

If you lot take a apartment slice of comic fine art and you lot don't have access to some serious photography equipment you're going to have to scan your art. Your ultimate goal is to have your comic fine art scanned in at at least 300dpi print size. Expect, stop… I know, I know.. I'm already using words like dpi and impress size.. what does it all mean. Okay let'due south intermission it down.

What is dpi? DPI stands for dots per inch. A printer prints in tiny dots. The more dots per inch the crisper the epitome. A high resolution image therefore has more than dots per inch. A low resolution has less. Merely deport in listen yous can always lower the resolution of an paradigm but y'all cannot increase the resolution and make an image crisper. Information technology'south a i manner street.

What is print size? Print size is the size something volition impress. If nosotros scan comic art at xi×17 and desire information technology to print half size the print size would be 5.v ten 8.5. The print size is the Last size of your printed production.

So how do these two work together? Well let's say you scanned your comic art in at 8.5×11 but scanned it at 72 dpi. If you try to print that, it volition print at the right size but the incorrect resolution. It will expect fuzzy and pixelated. Why? Well because 72 dpi looks great on screen but it's horrible in print. It'southward what monitors are designed for. Press 72 dots per inch on newspaper only isn't plenty. To get nice crisp lines and art you take to print at 300 dpi. So for that same 8.5×eleven certificate to impress correctly it needs to be scanned in at eight.5×xi at 300 dpi.

Well if 300 dpi is great for press my comic fine art what if I scanned at 400 dpi, or 600 dpi? Hey look. If you want to scan at higher dpi you are more than welcome. Simply here is why I don't.

It increases your file sizes and takes up infinite.
Information technology slows down your computer and makes coloring harder if you aren't using a super fast reckoner.
Quite frankly it's unnecessary. Virtually showtime printers can't impress more than 300 dpi. So why put yourself through art headache.
At present that isn't to say that there aren't advantages sometimes. For instance if you know a piece might exist printed larger down the route (for a poster or something like) then planning ahead might be good. Just I rarely find that is the case. And for large usages such as outdoor billboards or banners that are meant to exist seen far away the resolution requirements actually get downwards. Considering the artwork is meant to be seen at a distance typically billboards and the similar have much lower resolution requirements since the middle sees those images at a distance as being sharper.

Any scanner/scanning software volition have an option to cull your dpi when you scan. Unless you are scanning something specifically for spider web or to be seen on screen, then I recommend always scanning at to the lowest degree 300dpi. After all you can always reduce the size of something in regards to dpi but never tin can you upscale information technology.

Print size is different than dpi but also dependent on it. Print size is basically the size that you want something to print your comic fine art at. For instance if you want your comic fine art to print on a standard piece of letter newspaper, then information technology's print size is going to take to be close to 8.5×11.

Here is a handy guide to resolution –
Printing – 300dpi or to a higher place.
Spider web and screen viewing only – 72dpi[/one_half]

Scanning comic fine art.

Okay so hopefully we've got a handle on the basics of scanning comic art. Let'southward talk about some of the issues you'll run into. Virtually comic art is drawn on 11×17 boards. The typical art size on those boards differs slightly depending on the template you use or per publisher merely they are generally ready at about ten×15 size. Within that ten×fifteen size you have about a quarter of an inch on all sides of bleed. But to scan that we'll demand a scanner that tin adjust an 11×17 board. Simply…

The problem with this is that most people don't accept an eleven×17 scanner. And then we basically have three options.

Draw smaller (Say on 8.5×11 boards instead)
Browse your folio in pieces and stitch them together in photoshop
Notice a scanning service that will accommodate eleven×17
Now I'm not going to evidence you how to scan them in pieces if y'all decide to go that route, as

one. It would be a blog unto itself and

2. It really compromises quality.

Especially with some scanners information technology can cause then many headaches. So my recommendation is to either draw smaller or find the scanning service. Most Staples and Office Depot stores tin can scan 11×17 for you. Information technology may toll per scan but if you batch scan (a set up of pages all at once) y'all can get the scanning done much faster. Either that or find someone with a scanner that can adjust xi×17.

But regardless how you proceed I recommend you browse your comic art IN RGB Full COLOR at

eleven×17 at 300 dpi (RGB full color)

8.5×11 at 300 dpi. (RGB total colour)

Usually i scan at the former just because it's easier. All I take to do is select my page in my scanning software and my resolution is by default gear up to 300 every time. You can always alter the resolution after for whatsoever resolution you need.

Things that are of import when scanning.

Color – I e'er scan my comic fine art in colour

Resolution – I e'er scan at 300 dpi

Format – I always browse every bit tif (tif compression is lossless, significant information technology doesn't lose information like a jpeg will)

Image Correction – I usually choose none as I adjust in photoshop, which gives me more control

Getting rid of those bluish lines and cleaning upward the blacks…

At this point we've got our artwork scanned and nosotros're ready to do the dirty work. Nosotros're going to get rid of the pesky blue lines from both the comic board template and from whatsoever blue pencils we might have used. We're also going to clean up those blacks and make sure everything looks good. When you're done with this step you should take nice looking blackness and white line art that is either ready for print as is or ready to transport to a colorist.

To the right you will see the scanned comic art earlier it has been adjusted.

Feel free to click on the prototype to make it bigger and you will run into:

The brush strokes of the the ink.
The ink isn't 100% black.
In some areas you encounter the blue pencils that weren't erased fully still show.
Too this is ane prototype with white and black and putting colors backside the line fine art would exist difficult.

Don't worry. I'k going to show you how to fix all that in several like shooting fish in a barrel steps.

Blue Lines, Bluish Lines Everywhere!!!

I, like a lot of comic book artists, use blue pencils or bluish line pencils when I draw comic art. Also well-nigh every comic template you find uses a blue line template to indicate things like page border, trim marks, bleeds, and sometimes the live surface area of the comic. We obviously don't want that to prove up in our ready to impress comic art so I'll evidence you how to get rid of those pesky blue lines.

The key to doing this is working in channels. If you lot scanned in RGB you're good. If yous scanned in CMYK brand sure you catechumen to RGB for this to work.

Showtime get to the channels palette and click on the blue aqueduct. You'll find in the chief art frame the artwork will turn blackness and white and any bluish lines that were in your artwork all of a sudden disappear. This is just showing y'all the part of the artwork that is on the blue channel. Select All (Command – A on mac) and Copy (Command – C) this aqueduct.

Adjacent click on the Green channel. Y'all'll notice the artwork once more is black and white simply all the bluish lines from the original comic fine art starting time showing upward are blackness and white and the artwork looks kind of messy. This fourth dimension Select All (Control – A on mac) over again and this Paste Special (Shift Control – V). This will paste your blue aqueduct into your dark-green channel.

Same matter for the Red Channel. Click on the Red Channel and select all, then paste special. One time you've done this click on the RGB aqueduct you should have dainty clean black and white comic art with all your blue lines gone.

Darken It Up!

Now we are going to make the line art look dainty and black. Let'southward go to the Curves carte du jour: Image > Adjustments > Curves or Control-M on a mac. Next Motion the control bespeak at the bottom left of the graph about ane/ii to the right. And so motility the control point at the top right of the graph most 1/iv to the left. Striking okay.

And now your artwork is dainty and blackness. Y'all should then have nice clean artwork.

You tin can fiddle with the Curves if information technology's all the same non make clean plenty or if for some reason you nonetheless meet any pesky light grey lines. But this should practice the trick. At this bespeak you can save your file and send it on to your colorist or switch it to Greyscale if you intend on printing your volume black and white.

Source: https://www.matthewchilders.com/prepping-comic-art/#:~:text=Scanning%20comic%20art.&text=Most%20comic%20art%20is%20drawn,on%20all%20sides%20of%20bleed.

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