Cleaning Up Scanned Line Art in Adobe Photoshop

This note was created on 11 Dec, 2022 at 12:47.

1. Use adjustment layers to begin cleaning up your line art:
   • Remove any non-repro blue underdrawings with a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. After choosing the Cyans colour range in the Properties panel, set the saturation to minimum and lightness to maximum.
   • Use Curves and/or Levels adjustment layers to improve the line quality and whites, and remove any remaining underdrawings.
   • For inked line art, use a Threshold adjustment layer to convert the line art to black-and-white bitmap.
2. At the bottom of the Channels palette, click on Load channel as selection to create a selection of the white areas of the image.
3. Invert the selection.
4. Create a fill layer; the selection will be applied to the fill layer’s mask. Alternatively, use the Paint Bucket tool to fill the selection on a new layer.
5. Deselect the selection.
6. Delete or hide the scanned artwork and adjustment layers.