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Joined: 8/15/2008
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Location: Adelaide
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I am wondering about putting some of my lead pencil illustrations on shirts. I scan with a minimum of knowledge and I have had trouble removing all the white in the image without jaggering the edges and losing the image quality. When a design is put on light coloured products the white doesn't print, so is it safe to leave the white without trying to make everything but the sketch lines transparent?
Hope I am making sense.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 7/10/2008
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If you leave it white, you'll get the same jagged lines I think. Just trace your image in Photoshop or Illustrator and save as a transparent PNG file.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 8/15/2008
Posts: 192
Location: Adelaide
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Cheers Paul. I don't have either of those programs. PSP 8 is what I'm using. Is 'Tracing a way of making images vectors or selections? I don't think making them vectors will work because of the shading. I have tried all sorts in PSP and unless I colour them in, I have problems with the different shades of grey spanning from white to black and getting a trasperancy without it removing/leaving pixels it shouldn't and making it look BAD.
I know if I use a black sqaure background on a black shirt, it will leave a white line where the edge of the background is. If I leave a white background on white shirts, will there be any lines?
I am figuring that because white is not printed, it should be ok but I would rather get conformation that it will be fine or not from others who have given this a go before I post products.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 7/10/2008
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White "prints" transparent, so I guess it's fine. I've printed something recently from my store that had white lines around the edges and it came out fine.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 10/25/2009
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Location: Auckland
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I have products that are pure pencil sketch. In Photoshop I carefully trace round the edges, with one of the selection tools then clear the white, Using transparent background. Unsure of the tools in PSP. Then I save it as a 24 PNG
this means the piece I do, can be placed on dark colored objects. I fyou are printed on fabric as a main product for your T shirts then PNG is best way to safe and upload your designs. as opposed to jpg or jpge format
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Groups: Member
Joined: 8/15/2008
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Location: Adelaide
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Thanks Paul. I'm thinking the same thing. I may just have to try it, buy one as see what it turns out like. Nice designs there Imp. It turns out not so bad when I have coloured them in, but not so much the shades of grey. More than likely I don't have the tolerance settings correct or something because no matter how I try to clean out the white I always get very choppy results. I will try and get one posted up in the next week some time to give an example of what I am needing to achieve. Might be easier that way. I know the less I talk, the less I confuse people 
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Groups: Member
Joined: 7/10/2008
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Scan at the highest dpi setting, then cut out the background and see what happens.
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Joined: 2/12/2007
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Kym, if you are only printing on light apparel, you don't need to get rid of the white background. You also don't have to save as a png file either. PNG is used because it allows you to save an image with transparency while a jpg does not. Since white isn't a color that gets printed on white or light colored apparel, a jpg would also be an acceptable file format. As for scanning, make sure you aren't scanning it as line art. I'm assuming you want to preserve the shades of gray. You might as well scan it in color rather than as grayscale since I believe your file needs to remain as an RGB file. You can adjust the contrast to make sure your whites really are white, but I wouldn't make the dark areas too dark, unless that is the look you are going for. I don't know if PSP supports alpha channels, but the best way to get rid of white backgrounds is to make a selection via the channels pallet. I have photoshop CS4 and all I have to do is go to the RGB channel, make a selection (hover over the little icon until you see the pointer hand, then hold down the control key and you will see the pointer hand with the marque. Click on the icon and you will see the marching ants selecting all the areas of white. Inverse the selection Ctrl/Shift/I, and then go back to your layers pallet, make a new layer and fill that selection with black. You can then turn off the background layer and your drawing will be partially transparent because where ever there was black in your drawing, it will fill in with 100% black, where ever there are shades of gray, it will fill in at varying degrees of transparency. If I want to make it less transparent (and thus darker) I will simply keep filling in my selection with more black. I would find out if PSP supports alpha masks and see if you can find any tutorials that explain how to use them to make selections. Here is a sample of one of my sketches that I scanned and turned into a transparent png. I reversed my drawing for dark apparel so that white is black and vice versa. http://www.zazzle.com/creepy_spider_grunge_tee_tshirt-235436323307705665?gl=artladymanor&group=mens&lifestyle=fashion&rf=238473619411104466http://www.zazzle.com/creepy_spider_grunge_tee_tshirt-235875149825692595?gl=artladymanor&group=kids&lifestyle=classic&rf=238473619411104466
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Location: Adelaide
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ArtLadyManor, so sorry it has taken me so long to reply. My daughter is in hosptial so life is quite a bit out of wack at the moment. I have also lent her my sketchbook so I wont be posting the images anytime soon afer all. You have given me an excellent explanation with perfect examples of what I am trying to do. Great spider by the way, I really like it and it has come up well. Yep PSP does alpha channels and in all these years I have done my best to avoid it because I could never figure out what it was for and would confuse myself trying. Looks like I will have to stare this scarey monster down and win it over to my persuasion. Now that I now what its for and with your tips I may just get it sussed. Thank you for stopping in to help me out 
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Joined: 9/26/2009
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..comming in late here, but if you use photoshop like I do, I find this to be an awesome way to get my pencil drawings ready for digital work http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/quick-tip-preparing-line-drawings-for-coloring-in-photoshop/Hope your daughetr is okay *hug*
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Groups: Member
Joined: 8/15/2008
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Location: Adelaide
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Thanks kasei_lee on my way to check that out. Cheers for the good wishes
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Groups: Member
Joined: 8/21/2009
Posts: 176
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One thing I would suggest is to try it out and order one of your own shirts, if it turns out how you expected too, than go ahead with the rest. Good luck and keep up the good work!!
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Groups: Member
Joined: 11/14/2009
Posts: 9
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If you want i can stick your scans on photoshop ,remove the white and send you the pngs.
just one option that should be quik and easy to do.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 5/13/2009
Posts: 150
Location: Phoenix
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One possibility is - after you scan in your drawings you could try a 'color replace' command (whatever it might be called in PSP). If your drawings are done on a smooth or lightly textured (not 140lb cold press for instance) you should get the background in 'one color' - replace that color with white. If you need to do it a second time with another 'color' do so. And there 'should' be some 'tolerance' (to take care of the anti-aliasing) so you can replace the 'color' (and to some extent the shades/tints of that color caused by anti-aliasing) with white.
Normally I'd say scan in greyscale - but the idea of using color scanning here is an interesting possibility ... hmmm? Do both to see which works best and gives the smallest file size too.
Of course then you can also change the 'pencil' to another color - sepia, blue, etc ...
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