Basic Digital Coloring Skills

Yep, this tutorial is creating by me, a dumb brain-handicapped sucker just as the drawing I will use below.

Luffy: NANI, WHY AM I HERE? 

I think the most efficient way for beginner to learn digital drawing is by coloring black and white manga or line sketch because you don't need to think about ideas, elements of art, etc. In fact, that was just a bullshit for not drawing my sketch and scan it for no reason but a sucker. Anyway, Let's get started.

To color the line sketch digitally, you should open a image by either
right click on the original "image ---> open with  ---> Photoshop"
or
"open Photoshop ---> file ---> open (ctrl+O)"
(To open a drawing from paper, you should follow the scanner's instructions and save it as .jpeg or .png format then open it in PS.)


Forgot to say, "Ctrl" in Win= "Command" in Mac. "Alt" in Win= "Option" in Mac. Here I will use the shortcuts for Win.
And if you use a Mac mouse without right click button, you should hold shift key then left click for a right click, or you can just throw it out of window to buy a mouse with right click button.

Alright, here we go. If the image showing on the screen is too big or too small, you can use "ctrl+=" to zoom in or "ctrl+-" to zoom out.

If the actual image size is small or resolution is too low, go to image size (alt+ctrl+I), a window will poop up as above. First, uncheck the resample and set the resolution to 300ppi (pixels/inch) or higher, then recheck the resample to set width and height as you want. Personally, I recommend to set the dimensions a little bit bigger then the final size you want, so it is easier for cropping.

As you can see, there is a freaking watermark from the website. The easiest way to get rid of it is cropping the image because the watermark is on the edge and it doesn't affect much about the whole image. To crop an image, select "crop tool (C)" on the toolbar and click on the image, a cropping box with guild lines will show up. Dragging four points on the corner to change the box size, and can set the cropping ratio on the up right corner. After all, click check mark on the top middle or hit enter key to confirm.

So far we just set up the image for coloring. To prevent lose of work process, go to "file ---> save as(shift+ctrl+S) ---> format: Photoshop (PSD) ---> save". Later on, you can save process anytime through "file ---> save(ctrl+S)." And the way to prevent lose of work by messing up is to duplicate the image layer by right click on the layer then choose "duplicate layer"(ctrl+J).

Here are two easy ways to make a selection for filling solid colors, "magic wand (quick selection tool)" and "pen tool".
Before that, click on the second icon from the right on the bottom right corner to create a new layer.
Right click "quick selection tool" ---> "magic wand". Magic wand is the fastest tool to select a closed area or the area that has strong contrast with surrounding colors. Click on the area by magic wand, you will see a dotted line area.

Next, right click on the "gradient tool" ---> select "paint bucket", then double click on the front box and pick a color from color picker (back box is for background color). Click on the selection area once to fill the color, then use "ctrl+D" to delete the selection area. See how awesome is that. Hmm...you can't really see because the sucker filled the white area with white...

As you click on the eye icon once on the front of a layer, the icon will change to a box and that layer will be hidden, therefore we can only see two filled eyes with tear. Since I don't want that tear also be colored with eyes, I need to use pen tool to make selection. That is also one reason why magic wand is not always that helpful.

Pen tool(P) plays one of the most important roles in digital drawing, whenever you scan a line drawing into Photoshop, you need to trace the outline to make coloring easier, and even line drawing through digital drawing pad needs tracing by pen tool to make every line accurate.

Pen tool is easy yet it usually drives people crazy because it takes tons of time to trace. Click once by pen tool will give you a management point with two bars (two-sided), it's almost impossible to draw the shape you want by all two-sided management points because the next path you draw will affect the previous path (it's hard to explain, just try to draw a heart by yourself). The way to solve this is after you add a management point, hold "alt" key then click that point again, the point will become one-sided. If you want to add the other selection after a closed selection has been made, hold "shift" key then click once to create a new starting point.

The paths you drew will show in the "paths", you can also create new path as same as creating new layer. Click once on the path layer to select paths on that layer, right click "make selection" to define the area with dotted line. "Feather" means blurring on the edge, and the radius will vary according to the motive of a drawing or the resolution and size.

Fill in color with paint bucket in selection area, and delete selection through "ctrl+D".

A quick use of blending mode. Blending mode is the other important tool in Photoshop, it merges layers with different effects. Here I used "multiply". After dragging main image to the top layer position, the top layer should cover all other layers when it has high opacity (BTW, opacity can change separately on each layer), but multiply mode magically changes the color into tonalities, it's confused and hard to explain, so just forget its scientific explanation and calculation, only need to remember it it the best blending mode for line drawing.)

There is still some place without color in the eyeball, so I use brush(B) to fill in the color. In addition, when using a brush tool, if you hold on "alt" key, the tool till shift to eye dropper, that means if you click on one color in the drawing, the color in the color picker will change to that color. 

You can always use soft edge erase with 5-50% opacity to erase the color that is out of margin, high opacity is harder to control. 

Use dodge tool(O) to add highlights.

Use burn tool(right click on the dodge tool) to create shadows.

I don't have time to finish it, so pretend it's all done. Go to "save as" as we did at the beginning, but the only difference this time is saving the format as .jpeg then .psd.

Always save it as the highest quality!!!