How To Scan A Drawing Into Photoshop

If like many artists, you want to have the best of both worlds – creating art by hand, and then finessing them digitally – this Adobe Photoshop tutorial is right up your street. Illustrator Amylili (aka @amylilistudio) will show you how to clean up your scanned-in creations so they look their absolute best.

Tip: Scan your artwork with a high dpi – 600 dpi will give you a top-quality resolution.

Load your scanned artwork into Photoshop and duplicate the image. To do this, go to the Layers panel, right-click and select Duplicate Layer. Then hide your first layer by clicking on the eye.

Close up of man's face and hair showing Select and Mask, the background is now showing as red

Set up a new blank layer by selecting the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. Now you need to make it white. Select the Paint Bucket tool from the left-hand side and if the top square at the bottom of the panel isn't white, double-click it to update the colour.

Tip: Rename your layers so you know what's what. It keeps your workspace clean and is a great habit to get into.

If your background is a bit grey and dull, this step will make all the difference. Head back to the Layers panel and select the circle icon to create an Adjustment Layer, then choose Curves. Within the next window, you need to pick the third Paint Dropper icon to make white updates. Then go around your image selecting the lightest parts of it. This tells Photoshop which bits you want to be white.

Properties, View Mode is displayed and the flower is now to the side of the man's face

Go back to your main image layer and select the Rectangular Marquee tool. This is the quickest method for removing lines that have appeared when scanning in your art. Simply select the lines and hit Delete.

Now it's time to play with the Levels, to make sure your art is as colourful as possible. So, let's go to Image > Adjustments > Levels. Now tick the Preview box and play around with the arrows until you're happy with your adjustments.

The finished image of the man with flowers has been printed and framed, and is displayed on a table

You've already sorted the blemishes that were immediately obvious to you. Now zoom in and search for the finer blotches and dots. And then, of course, let's remove them. To do this, you'll need to select the Spot Healing Brush from the bottom of the left panel. It's as simple as clicking on the dots you identify – Photoshop will do the rest, and you'll see each spot vanish.

If the blemishes are close to your artwork, the Spot Healing Brush might not deliver the desired result. For these times, turn to the Clone Stamp tool. Press down Option/Alt and select a white section of your image. Then go back to the blemish and try again, this time you'll be cloning the area you've selected.

The finished image of the man with flowers has been printed and framed, and is displayed on a table