Home Forums Chat Forum Photoshop help – removing graph paper lines

Viewing 24 posts - 1 through 24 (of 24 total)
  • Photoshop help – removing graph paper lines
  • molgrips
    Free Member

    Got a line drawing in reasonably thick black pen but not super dark, on graph paper. We’ve scanned it – how to remove the graph paper lines? They are the traditional pale blue.

    jamesfts
    Free Member

    james@fromthesticks.co.uk – send it over if you want, i’ve a quiet Friday on the cards.

    stumpy01
    Full Member

    If they are a lot lighter than the actual drawing, could you use a threshold adjustment layer?

    AlexSimon
    Full Member

    I would add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer on top.
    Then dropdown the select box with ‘Master’ written in it to ‘Cyans’.
    Then boost the lightness until they disappear. If they don’t fully disappear, then also drop the list down to ‘Blues’ and do the same.

    jimjam
    Free Member

    Please, post it up so that we may help you.

    binners
    Full Member

    Do post it up Molls. I’ll sort it out for you

    jimjam
    Free Member

    No. I’ll fix it right up for sure.

    MrSmith
    Free Member

    Hue/Saturation/brightness adjustment layer then use the dropper tool to select the blue (which may be blue or either cyan) then lighten and remove the saturation.
    i would be tempted to take it to a blown 255/255/255, flatten and then use a clone stamp in darken mode so that the black pen remains untouched but the paper white/texture can be copied over the pure white areas left by removing the blue lines.
    if you want the white background to absolutely pure white then levels will sort that with the mid point adjusted if there is any grey shading you want to retain.

    cpon
    Free Member

    1. Mode > Grayscale

    2. Image > Adjustments > Levels

    Adjust level sliders, pull left slider right until faint lines disappear, pull left slider right to bring up contrast in dark areas.

    AlexSimon
    Full Member

    cpon – Member

    1. Mode > Grayscale

    2. Image > Adjustments > Levels

    Adjust level sliders, pull left slider right until faint lines disappear, pull left slider right to bring up contrast in dark areas. I wouldn’t do this personally. At the moment you’ve got a useful differentiator between light intentional marks and the blue lines. If you convert to greyscale you’ve thrown this out.

    Another useful method is to use a Black & White adjustment layer and boost the colours you want to lose. Very similar results to the method I posted above.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Thanks folks.. sort of there now.. only issue is that the black lines aren’t really solid, you can see white flecks in them now.

    We want it to look like a kids colouring book drawing.

    And I’d love to post it up but it’s not our drawing and would not be fair on the artist to have it mocked on the internet.

    cokie
    Full Member

    Ping it to me at cokie.stw(at)gmail.com, I’ve got something that should do it.

    jimjam
    Free Member

    molgrips
    would not be fair on the artist to have it mocked on the internet.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Oh and thanks for the offers to do it but there might be many, and we’d like to gain the skills for the future.

    cokie
    Full Member

    Okay, in that case try Adobe Capture– download on your phone/tablet and have a play.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    If the lines are blue and the text is black use image>adjustments>selectivecolor and take CYMK sliders out of the blues and the cyan. Then any color left there after. They’ll disappear eventually. you lose some out of your black as well doing this but shouldn’t be too much.

    AlexSimon
    Full Member

    orangespyderman
    Full Member

    Oh and thanks for the offers to do it but there might be many, and we’d like to gain the skills for the future.

    If this is going to be a regular occurence can I suggest you just buy some plain paper? 😀

    Klunk
    Free Member

    i would just copy the red or green channels into a layer and use curves to tidy it up.

    jimjam
    Free Member

    There will be multiple ways of doing it. Possibly hundreds.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    If this is going to be a regular occurence can I suggest you just buy some plain paper?

    Artist uses graph paper for a reason, they are symmetrical and geometric.

    Greybeard
    Free Member

    I’d pick the background colour with the dropper, zoom in and pour the paint bucket onto the lines. It won’t get the edges of the lines as they’ll be paler, but if you fiddle with the tolerances on the paint colour you’ll get most of it, then you can use the techniques above to remove the last bit; despeckle is also good for removing small bits of colour. Just remember to work on a copy as it may take a few attempts.

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    Maybe in future your artist could use plain paper with a really boldly printed grid on another piece of paper beneath it ?

    CountZero
    Full Member

    Used to do all my artwork on sheets printed with a pale cyan graph grid, which would be shot on lith film, which couldn’t ‘see’ cyan, but with digital scanning and photography, such a process is no longer an option, but there are certainly ways of selecting blues and cyans in Ps selective colour that should remove most of the grid lines, and other processes as others have suggested.
    Once you’ve got a process that works successfully, record it as an action on a ‘F’-key, and just run the action for each new job, it’ll save a lot of work in future.

Viewing 24 posts - 1 through 24 (of 24 total)

The topic ‘Photoshop help – removing graph paper lines’ is closed to new replies.