If you can run Illustrator CS2, it has a livetrace option. If not, Adobe had a stand-alone program called Streamline.



Flash MX and on also has a trace bitmap option..

DANRULE WINS!

that was quick

or the long version: (I saved this from the blog replies from when someone else asked the same question. Sadly my copy does not have the names of the original responders)



if it's just a BW image use the Levels filter which can be most easily found in the layers palette. Play around with the three arrows to your liking. In general (not always) move the left arrow to the first 'hill' in the histogram and then the right arrow to the rightmost 'hill' then adjust the middle arrow to your liking. You may still have to do some cleaning up, but this usually speeds things up. For color images Levels still work but I've found curves to be better.

One method that I learned is to scan your drawing, mess with the brightness/contrast settings until you get a basic shape, then use the magic erase tool to get rid of all the white space (this pretty much works with black and white images only). Now that you have just a black outline of your outlines/shapes/etc. with a transparent background, select the entire layer of your drawing and go down to the Paths tab. Click the button that says "Make work path from selection". This should clean your lines up a bit so that you can transfer it into Illustrator if you'd like. Now go to Edit and Define Custom Shape and you should have a Custom Shape Tool that looks like your original drawing. Sorry if the directions are confusing, but it's the best way I've found to clean up a sketch. You may also want to not that it only works for drawings that aren't too detailed. Hope that helps...

I use alot of photoshop, I usually go into photoshop then color over the lines that i sketch on paper.



It takes alot of practice to get good solid lines, though illustrator will usually do the job for you



I know there a program that will vectorize your linework, I think its called Adobe Streamline, I tried it a couple years ago and didnt like it.

i'd trace it with paths using the pen tool then make the paths into selection and fill them, otherwise there';s no great way to tidy up a scanned sketch that i've seen.

It all depends on how you want the output of your work to look.

If you scan a sketch into photoshop as a starting place for your design, you can use the layers and the paint tools in photoshop to build up your design much the same way you would paint on a canvas. Using different layers each time you add color to you piece.



I've found that for the type of work I do, Photoshop isn't the best for "drawing" unless you have a tablet which makes things MUCH easier.



If you scan your work and import it into Illustrator, you can use the pen tool to trace your sketch. The ability to edit, delete and modify your lines in Illustrator is MUCH easier than Photoshop as you can add points, delete points etc. The idea is the same though... using layers to build up your piece. This makes it easier for you to edit one particular aspect of your piece without having to sift down through too many elements in one layer. Obviously Illustrator has a much more 'digital' feel to it as it's designed for drawing and not 'painting' or photo editing like Photoshop.



Looking at the work you have posted in your profile, I think a good mix of photoshop AND illustrator would benefit you nicely. With the piece top left, you're using some relatively thick lines so one thing you can do is scan the drawing into photoshop, using the color selection tool (magic wand) you'd select the black color in your lines, go to the "paths" option and create a new working path which you can then import into Illustrator to add color, gradients etc.



In the end it really comes down to taking the time to play with both applications and seeing which you like better.



Hope this helps a LITTLE bit. Good luck.

What I did when I scanned an image that had ink from the back page pop up was to take it into photoshop, decrease the brightness until a majority of the imperfections dissapeared and then upped the contrast. That makes your important lines nice and dark but the imperfections mostly dissapear. After that is just cleaning up.

Before scanning my sketches I always go over the lines with ink (I prefer Micron pens, but there are better ones out there), then erase my sketch lines. These pens give nice, smooth lines that scan nicely. I scan in straight black and white / monochrome at 300 dpi or higher, so there is no grey in the image, just the black lines and white background. Then I fix up any little inking errors, which generally doesn't take long, and that's it.

If the image you are talking about is the one on the top left, I would generally do it one of two ways depending on what the final desired outcome is.



In a vector drawing program my first approach for this particular piece is the same as d3d. I would scan it in and then hand trace it using bezier curves and making the objects closed so they could be filled if you wanted. I would also make sure each piece was layered correctly so that if they were filled with color they wouldn’t cover each other up. I generally work using filled objects for this reason.



For a bitmap editing progg, the approach I would use would be what Pico suggested and to scan the drawing in at at least 300 dpi black and white and not grey scale. You would still have some cleanup in PS. If I were doing it, I would then do most of the cleanup actually using selection tools and deletion/maybe convert to RGB or grey scale now that it has been scanned and use layers to "adjust" areas that don’t look right by adding color to areas that didn’t scan well.

Quck way to do it is make your scan greyscale then adjust contrast so image is b&w then copy image to flash mx and use the trace image tool. Instant vector, smoothe image lines. Ready for colouring and final tweaks