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In this tutorial I will show you one of the many methods of editing a scanned drawing.
First, let’s draw something and scan it. I might not be Picasso, but this will work:

I’ve scanned this picture as a A4 paper, with 300dpi, resulting in a 1349×2040 image. It’s a lot for web-use, so we need to change that.

Let’s open this in Photoshop and try to give it a more web-friendly size. Go to Image -> Image Size (CTRL+ALT+I) and decrease the size and resolution of the picture (modifying the Resolution from 300 to 72 will do the trick):

So, here is the image after the resize:

Now, let’s do some basic tweaking for the picture. Duplicate the layer (Layer -> Duplicate layer). Name it Multiply. Grab the Magic Wand tool (not the best option in the world, but it will do the job), and click outside the character to select the white background. Hit the Delete key. Select the blend mode to Multiply. Basically, here we just made the character be more intense in color and the background to stay the same.

With the selection still active, select the Background layer, and play with the Levels option (Mode -> Adjustments -> Levels or CTRL+L) so the white will be even more intense.

To do things more interesting, duplicate the Multiply layer (Layer->Duplicate Layer) and name it Linear Burn (also, change the blend mode to Linear Burn) and downscale the opacity to a convenient value (in this case, around 50%). You don`t want the cartoon to be too intense in black.

Now, the final touches. First, save the project as a JPEG (File -> Save As -> JPEG or CTRL+SHIFT+S). We will leave Photoshop aside for a while, and do a alternative and modern way to correct the imperfections of the image. Go to http://www.reshade.com, and login / signup (free). Select Online Image Resizer. Upload your JPEG with the drawing and press the Submit button to upload the image. You may wonder why I do not just use Photoshop. The answer is really simple: I want to see the image directly in the browser so I can have a idea of how it will look on the Internet, and this application is faster and easier than Photoshop, with the same results.

First, select the size you want. Be sure you select a bigger size, so the effects will work. Check the Denoise button, select a Soft denoise (the Hard selection will result in a crisp image, which is not the case in our example). Also, check the Smooth button, with the Strong option selected (the Soft option is a good alternative, but I get better results with the Strong option in this case).

When you’re done, press the RESIZE button and you will end up with your clear drawing edited for further use (crop, incorporate in other designs, etc):

I`m sure you`ve seen this effect before and wondered how it is done. It`s often seen in magazines but this technique of focusing is pretty common in all media formats.

So, how can you do it?

First, let`s find a good picture to use. I will use the following Royalty Free picture:

For this effect to be perfect, I like to have a really clear image. As you can see, this image is a little bit blurry and has a lot of noise in it. So, first, let`s open the image in Reshade – Image Enlarger. With this program I will try to eliminate the noise and sharpen the image (reduce the blur). I use Reshade instead of Photoshop because this program does the job better, and, most important, much easier and quicker. Without using Reshade, the end result will be similar, but will have some blur, noise and artefacts, that I think will ruin the image.

So, after I tried several settings, I ended up using these:

The difference is subtle, but quite visible for the trained eye.

Now, open the modified image in Photoshop. Go to the path panel, and create a new Path. Select the Pen tool and start drawing an outside line for the object you want to focus in the end. Feel free to zoom as much as you want to make all the process easier. It`s not necessarily to make the selection perfect, actually, you can make a rough selection:

Make sure you close the path (end by clicking at the start anchor point). Now, right click on the path in the Path toolbox and click on Make Selection.
Select a Feather Radius of around 20px.

Go to Filter -> Blur -> Radial Blur. Use this settings:

The end result should look something like this:

Some of you might have noticed that after the 1 month expiration period was over, your online credits were still there, ready to use, and all the advantages of a premium user were not taken away. We had a grace period in place for your credits until now.

As of today, any credits purchased have a two month expiration  (yes, it’s been extended with one whole month). For those of you that purchased a very large amount of credits, and might not have been aware of the expiration notice, we’ve decided to extend your expiration period with one month for every 10 credits purchased (only works retroactively). For those that had purchased 100 credits, they will expire in 10 months from now on.

Have a nice weekend!