Last week, I shared a watercolor paper doll, or, as I like to think about it, an exercise in patience and perseverance! It was frustrating!! But I liked the final watercolor enough to scan it in and edit it, with the intention of painting a little wardrobe.
First things first, I trimmed my paper. I have two small scanners and my 9x12 paper just didn't fit. So I trimmed the doll off, kept the remainder of the paper, and scanned the doll. That's the beauty of digitally editing! I can create any layout I want and it doesn't have to be perfect on the paper!
I tried scanning it at 300 dpi on my all-in-one printer. It was ok but not a great scan. I have a small Epson scanner that scans a bit better so I tried that. And it was still a little weird. Then I remembered a tip I got from Jenny ages ago: sometimes placing a blue/cyan paper on the scanner helps. And it did!
Here's the "before" scan. The colors are very ho-hum, a bit yellow, and a bit too light. The only edited I did here was a bit of cropping.
Why does this work? I don't know. Maybe there are some color theory experts out there who understand more than I do and can explain it. For me, it's magic and I'll keep doing it!
My image is scanned, with blue paper, at 600 dpi. I know from my years of paper doll editing experience that EVERY doll needs some editing. I try to do all of that editing at 600 dpi, then adjust it to 330 dpi for printing. That way, any manipulation that looks lower-resolution or blurry or whatever becomes crisp again when it's shrunk down. Hopefully that makes sense! Basically, shrinking art makes it sharp.
Feel free to click on this image to see it larger!
Here's the doll in Photoshop. You can see the bright blue paper and a few layers. I try to keep the original scan on the bottom layer (Layer 0 in this image) and work with a copy above it (Layer 0 copy). I added a guideline just to straighten out the scan.
There are several ways to extract art from the background. You can use selection tools like the magic wand, or trace around it with the pen tool and create a selection. My preferred method can be a bit tedious but it's what works best for me: a layer mask.
First, I add what I call a high contrast layer under the layer that has a mask. I like a magenta color. Then, I add the mask to the layer (Layer 0 copy in this image) and use the brush tool to draw around the image. I have a pen display and draw directly on that.
I can write up more about masks and how I use them if anyone is interested in that. I think it's a great tool and I use it ALL the time!
After the art is extracted, I noticed a few things. First, the hair is weird. Second, the coloring is still a bit off. And third, I don't like some of the hard edges of the watercolor painting. The image on my screen is much larger than the painting - that was about 7 inches high which, for me, feels teeny tiny!
I used the spot healing brush to smooth out some of the color transitions and clean up some of the dust, etc, that got onto the painting. Then, I went into the levels panel and tweaked the color just a bit. I wanted it to be just a little lighter. I made a note of what I did on the layer so that I can adjust the clothing scans later on. And finally, I copied the left side of the hair (which I like), flipped it horizontally, and placed it on the right side where I blended it in until I was happy.
Before is on the right and after is on the left because I clearly did not think this through when I took the screenshot....
And that's it. Probably the only other thing I might do at this point is edit the base. I'm not overly concerned about it at this stage.
Now that I'm happy with the doll, it's time to start on a wardrobe!
