Sharp Lines in Photoshop essentials

[Aran]

um, yeah... how do you get straight lines in Photoshop Essentials if there's no pen tool?

 

[Arcanum]

If what you're talking about is what I think, then you just click with the brush or the pencil tool in one place, hold shift, and then click in another place, and voila! That should do it. Pretty easy.

 

[Aran]

oh... i mean "sharp" lines... but that does work for straight lines

 

[Tana]

if you're using the brush tool, increase your hardness to 100.

 

[Aran]

lol... i mean like... manga-sharp

 

[TheBlackMarket]

They exclude that functionality from Photoshop Essentials to get you to fork over your limbs for the real deal. There is a way to get your lines extremely crisp and sharp without that, though, but it involves working at around 600 dpi with the PENCIL tool, not the PEN tool. You need your lines to be sharp to the pixel to get the kind of sharpness you're looking for when you shrink it...

Basically, if you're scanning something, you make sure you scan it at 600dpi or higher. Mess with your levels a bit until you get only two colors in your lineart-- drag the dark arrow to the light arrow's location in the levels dialogue and clean up any stray lines that are left with the eraser tool (Make sure it's set to 'Pencil' or "Block" or something like that; anything but BRUSH).
After that, you can fill in your flat colors easily, then you shrink it and shade it.

 

[Aran]

wow... i'm lost XD

what's dpi?

 

[TheBlackMarket]

Oh, whoops.

DPI is Dots Per Inch -- your picture's resolution. When making a new file, this number is next to "Resolution", and is usually set to 72. Set this number to 600.

 

[Aran]

o. in that case i kno wut DPI is :D

but now i can't find how to increase it b/c mines is at 72

h/o, i'll look.

TBM, do u use a tablet?

 

[TheBlackMarket]

Yes, I do. I use a 4x6 Graphire 3. If you already have a file made or something like that, find Image Size and you can edit your picture's resolution there. Simply change the number from 72 to 600, making sure that your image's size is measured in anything but pixels. If you try to change the resolution without changing the units from pixels, your image will not change in size. Be careful, though, you can't work at 600 dpi if your computer sucks.

 

[Aran]

its at 600 and its workin fine (woo-hoo!) ^^