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Question: How to i colour in a scanned (hand drawn) picture on adobe illustrator!?
I have just bought adobe illustrator cs3 and know virtually nothing:

the reason i bought this programme is because i draw cartoon sketches quite and it was suggested to me that it might be better to add colour on adobe rather than by hand this making the colouring sharper and in vector (!!?) format!.!.!.

i was wondering if anyone could give me a basic run-though on how to colour the picture!? or a link to a website where i can get a tutorial!?

i have scanned in the doodle i am wanting to use, and have opened it in adobe illustrator but that's as far as i get!.!.!.


thanks,
xxWww@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
You have a fair bit to take in so it might take a while at first!.

There are two basic processes for doing this!.

One, use the Live Trace option, this is fairly simple, there are a number of preset options available, select your image, choose a preset from the dropdown menu and hit the Live Trace button!.

http://livedocs!.adobe!.com/en_US/Illustra!.!.!.

http://www!.adobe!.com/designcenter/video_!.!.!.

Having done that you can expand the appearance and using the selection tools amend the Live Trace results!.

Two, using the scan as part of the artwork, partially not vector unless you redraw the scan in Illustrator, however it is a good way of working in the long run as some of the Live Trace options aren't all that!.

To start you need a gr(a)eyscale scan of your drawing, this needs to be placed on a Layer and the Layer Transparency set to Multiply!. This stays on the top level of your layers all the colour work goes on beneath it!. Lock this layer with the little padlock icon in the Layer menu!.

Create three layers beneath your scan, name them background, shadow and highlight (background goes at the bottom, the other two above) what you put in them is fairly obvious, it is good practice to get used to using as many layers as you need, because you can lock and hide layers it makes selecting different parts of the artwork easy and naming them makes it even easier!.

In the background layer you are going to draw up the basic blocks of colour using the pen tool, select a coloured stroke and no fill (this helps you see where you are going with the pen!. Every time you click the mouse with the pen tool you are creating a corner, if you click and drag you get a curve the corner has two arms coming out, you can select and drag these arms to alter the shape of your curve (you can also drag the line in between these anchor points)!.

Once you have drawn your block you can turn the stroke to nothing and add a colour fill, repeat this process until you have filled the areas you need, the scan will appear as black above the drawing, then start on the shadow and highlight layers!.

It will take a while before you master this but eventually it will come as second nature!.Www@QuestionHome@Com