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I posted part of this question in general stamping and it was suggested I try again here. Now I actually have 2 questions for digi stamp creators.
1) what is the process to get from a line drawing to a digi stamp online to be downloaded. I have PSE7 but haven't learned how to do it. I haven't been able to find any easy step by step tutorials either. One of you all should do a tutorial on creating digis.
2) I put some of the digis I bought and/or downloaded for free into MS Paint to see how clean your images are (not to change or alter them). Wow, the lines are so even and there are no shadow pixels anywhere. Even my most final ink drawing with no erasings or pencil lines don't come out nearly that clean. How do you do it and how long does it take? Do you clean them up in paint or something else. Can you do that in PSE? What size pen tip do you use? Is there a 'magic button' you use to get all the lines such an even width?
You can clearly see I am a newbie in this area. I have been doing my own drawings for years and have always wanted to make some into rubber stamps. Doing that is so costly and companies that create rubber stamps for small enterprises are very rare. Doing them digi is a perfect solution and I would like to learn the best way to do it. I know everyone here is so creative and produce beautiful images. I hope you are willing to share some of your knowledge. TIA!!!
Hi there!
I just popped in and saw your question. I am by far not a pro, but I use a digital tablet (WACOM) and a drawing pen to do my images. There are many different ways to do digis, when I asked around from some of the more established artists, I discovered a range of preferences.
~Some freehand draw and then trace over with a good pen. Then they scan it into their computer to get the digital image.
~One artist takes pictures of her drawing, uploads it into her computer and then uses Photoshop to edit.
I would strongly suggest a tablet, it ranges in price, but the basic ones start off at under $100. The most costly part so far is the Illustrator software that helps out with the designing and editing process. There are quite a few features with Illustrator that help tremendously, including the width of the image, the fluidity of lines, and since it is vector drawn, there is zero pixel splatter around the digi.
I hope this information helps, please feel free to PM me if you'd like to chat! You can see my work in my Inktegrity blog and my store below in my signature line. There are so many awesome digi designers out there, I would be more than happy to give you the links to their sites.
I just started doing the same thing myself (turning my drawings into digis)... I do everything in my sketchpad with a really good and smooth black ink pen. Then I scan at 300dpi. Bring into photoshop and clean it up with my tools and do some level adjustments to get an even tone to the lines. If it is suppose to look "sketchy" then I just let the lines stay how I draw them. But if I want the really clean and even lines like my Doodleblooms then I trace the entire image with the pen tool (in photoshop). (if you need pen tool help just google or youtube it!) Usually at a width from about 3 to 5 px. Oh, I also use a wacom tablet (6"x9").
I would also LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear how others do this technique as well. I am just learning as I go!!!
for mine I sketch it out on paper, roughly with a pen. Then I using tracing paper to get my final lines. No smearing or smudging that way. I then scan it in and there is usually little to no clean up. Just making sure the lines are dark and even (I use the levels to do it in PS) I then use a filter that comes with that I read in a book that comic artist use (the book was about taking your comics online). Its Filter>Shapen>Unsharpen Mask. The three sliders there, put the first all the way up, the radius between 1-3 (you'll have to play with it a lil) and the levels between 10-30. This will really clean up your lines. Do that filter TWICE. You can see my freebie on the site Some Odd Girl to see how it turned out. HTH!!! Feel free to email me anytime!
Thanks for the info. I have PSE and it is very difficult to navigate. All the directions I have found were for PS and it seems the links are not the same. Suffice to say I am crawling thru this process and I am getting frustrated.
Traceydawnn, I don't know if the 'creating digi's' was supposed to be a link but it doesn't work, let me know where I can find that.
I too am looking for step by step instructions ( the dummies version) and using PSE would be nice as I don't want to do it for commercial sale Photoshop is rather expensive. I would like to do digi for hard to find images but there are public domain images I would like to make into digi stamps
Hi all,
I'm not sure what happened to my first post up there, but my process is almost identical to Tiffany's. I like a rough, sketchy look so I leave most of my images "as is". I have illustrated rubber stamps for companies in the past and vectorized lines are required. The best software for smooth lines I've found is AdobeIllustrated. It's expensive, but it's the best if you're illustrating professionally. I use PS for my store though. It's waaaaaay... more fun!
(I can't use a Wacum tablet to save my life!)
Interesting thread. Those of you who use a Wacom, which product are you using?
This is all very interesting to me and I'm with StelaGrafx and would like to learn more. I'm afraid I know oh so very little about all of this. For instance, what are vectorized lines? And I'm assuming PSE is Photoshop Elements? haha. Did I at least get that right? I have Elements but shy away from it because I don't know how to use it and don't have the time to explore it. Thanks for any input!
__________________ Karen My Gallery Do something fun, everyday.
Interesting thread. Those of you who use a Wacom, which product are you using?
This is all very interesting to me and I'm with StelaGrafx and would like to learn more. I'm afraid I know oh so very little about all of this. For instance, what are vectorized lines? And I'm assuming PSE is Photoshop Elements? haha. Did I at least get that right? I have Elements but shy away from it because I don't know how to use it and don't have the time to explore it. Thanks for any input!
To put it simply, vectorized lines are lines that can be stretched smaller or larger than the original image size and they still look like the same sharp lines. Adobe Illustrator specializes in this type of image creation. Adobe Photoshop is geared towards "bitmap" images that are based on little pixels of information. That is why when you resize a jpeg file (for instance) you can see alot of pixelation in the image. Although, Photoshop is also capable of creating vector based images perfectly well. You are given more vector based tools in illustrator.
Hope that answers your question!
I do have a tutorial on "how to turn a photo into a digi stamp" in Photoshop. If you are interested in that kind of technique.
Hey thanks Tiffany. Even though I'm not up to speed on Photoshop, your tutorial seemed easy enough to follow and I WILL give it a shot! (just as soon as I get a large chunk of free time!)
I think I'm finally getting a grasp of these digital images. Thank you so much.
__________________ Karen My Gallery Do something fun, everyday.
How do you all do it
