Eliminating white backgrounds on scanned-in sketches.

How to eliminate the white backgrounds on scanned-in sketches/line art.

1. Open the scanned art work in Photoshop. Make sure that the color mode is set to RGB Color.

If the background is a pure white, skip to step 4. If the background is grayish, go on to the next step.

2. Open the Levels window (Ctrl+L). You should now see a jagged pattern in the center with three arrows right below it. Drag the Black arrow to the right until the background is almost white or until the lines are about to go jagged-mode on you. Click OK to apply the changes.

3. Now adjust the Brightness/Contrast (Image->Adjust->Brightness/Contrast) and move the Contrast slider until the background is white.

4. Select All (Ctrl+A) and copy (Ctrl+C). Open the Channels window if it isn't out already (Window->Show Channels). Click on the Create new Channel button and Paste (Ctrl+V) into that channel.

5. While having the Channel selected, Invert (Ctrl+I) the image.

6. Click on the Load Channel as Selection button and a marquee should now surround the white lines.

7. Go back to your Layers window and click on the Create new Layer button. While having the foreground color set as black, fill the selection with the foreground twice (Alt+Backspace)X2. This should now leave you with the outline of the pencil strokes minus the white background.

8. Delete the original image layer and place a layer filled with white below it.

nice

Orrr, after #3 (makeing the background white)

You could just go:

CTR+ALT+1 <--selects white pixels

CTR+SHIFT+I <--inverts that selection

CTR+J <--copy/paste selection to a new layer

and in 3 keystrokes you have a new layer layer without the white background.

thx for sharing this with us mo0 it really helped for me

Okay thanks for sharing that technique with us....i copied/pasted your post.