Putting Mr Big water coloured sketches into Photoshop

Here is the blue water coloured image that i have put into Photoshop, and used the magic wand tool to delete the background so that i have a transparent background and can focus on just the drawing. I also used the brush tool to fill in some parts of the image that maybe hadn't got any watercolour on it, or maybe the scanner had not picked up. I tried not to do this to large parts as it could possibly ruin the effect of the watercolour.

Firstly i changed the brightness and contrast of the image, to enhance the colours in the image.


I then changed the levels of the image to boost the marks that the fine liner had made, so that it looked the best it possibly could.

Finally I changed the exposure slightly to enhance the effect of the watercolour and ensure the colours in the image looked the best that they could, without looking too ridiculous.

Here is the finished image, overall I am very happy with the outcome of this design and I am definitely considering using it as the design for my book. The only way I would improve the design and the effect of the image is that I would possibly do a few more designs of this, using the same colours and technique, but seeing the different ways it would look at the end of each time.

Here is the fine liner drawing (on the left) that I have put into Photoshop and used the threshold to ensure that the marks are defined, and could either be used on their own or with the other water coloured images, to add more definition to them. I decided to use this image with one of the water coloured images, and placed it on top of that image. On the right i have taken one of the water coloured images, and edited it in Photoshop to create the desired effect that i wanted for this character. To create the effect I wanted, I edited the contrast, levels and vibrance. I then decided to add the fine liner image on top of it to make the image bolder and make sure that it would stand out if it were to be on the front cover of a children's book. Overall I am very happy with how this turned out and also think that this would look extremely good on the front cover of a book.

Here I have put the inked cotton bud scan into Photoshop and used the magic wand tool to get rid of the background so that it is transparent.

After making the background transparent i adjusted the threshold of the black markings to make them darker and enhance the thickness of the lines.

I then went onto my watercolour image on Photoshop and to remove the background on this image I used the lasso tool, and went round the outline of the image. Then I selected the inverse tool to ensure the background was deleted and not the image. After this I went back in with the polygonal lasso tool to effectively remove the parts of the background that i hadn't managed to select before could be deleted.

After doing that I went ahead and enhanced the colours in the image by adjusting the levels and curves. This boosts the water coloured parts of the image much more, ensuring the colours do not look dull or uninteresting.

Then i combined the 2 images together to create this effect, so that the lines and markings in both images were enhanced and complimented each other.

I realised that the lines being black was very harsh and made the rest of the image look unappealing, and i decided to experiment with the tones and colours of the lines. In the end I went with a very dark brown to ensure it would not clash, and complimented each other.