Photoshop watercolours & pencil work

mikebatho said:

Hi.

I'm a bit rusty from being out of the Photoshop game for a few years. I'm doing a series of pictures where I need to scan in a pencil sketch, keep the carbon looking lines but colour the picture to look like watercolours. I've done something like this before but thought if anyone can set me off with pointers it would speed up me getting back into the swing of things.

So...anyone? : )

Click to expand...

hi Mike,
Set your scanned-in image to Multiply in the Layers palette, keep your color layers below that.

I'll dig around for a link for you.

This is a good one:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/12/07/mixing-up-illustration-combining-analog-and-digital-techniques/

Oops, it's great but doesn't set the scan to the top with Multiply, so here's an additional link:
http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/drawing/quick-tip-colorize-a-comic-strip-with-photoshop/

You'll have fun.

Some interpolation required, --a little tweaking of the layer settings and adjustments.

Lots of free Photoshop tutorials online, you can check out sites like photoshoptutorials.ws , PSDTutsplus, etc., etc.

Not specifically what you asked but here's a nice watercolor effect and a helpful site:
http://wegraphics.net/blog/tutorials/create-a-colorful-grunge-portrait-in-seconds/

Quick tip: place a watercolor paper texture image from Deviantarts or somewhere on the top most layer, set to either Multiply or Overlay, depending, to give the effect of being painted on real Arches or whatever.

Now, less typing & more drawing for me. Good luck.

I've got a ton from all over, Sirius-sdz on Deviantarts is a mad-genius of gorgeous hi-res textures, wegraphics has some free watercolor or canvas textures mixed in with the paid stuff, here's a link for assorted papers & washi textures from photoshoptutorials:

http://photoshoptutorials.ws/category/downloads/page/2/

And you can scan your own in.

The absolute gold standard for textures, as far as I'm concerned: Lost & Taken

An amazing amount of quality material, all of it free.

Cheers

Jim