[Holiday]

I don't use non-photo blue pencils often when drawing. The lines still appear after I scan them. So are they of any use even in the professional world?

[Fett]

I used to use non-blue, but it pissed me off something chronic. I don't use it. A lot of people do I think for post-scanning, I think getting rid of blue lines is easier than getting rid of black ones or something.

I dunno.

[CDR]

As far as I know blue lines SHOULD appear in your scanned picture.
You get rid of them in Photoshop (or similar program). There you can select a specific range of color in the whole pic (blue? :P) and erase it all with a single click of your mouse.

CDR

[1dimensional]

The only time they are really not supposed to pop up on a scan is when you scan it in under "Black and white" (not greyscale). It's just for sketching anyway, most artists I know just ink the image after they finish sketching with blue pencil or they just use a really dark pencil to mimic ink then change the contrast.

[Holiday]

I finally got some non-photo pencils. I'll give them a try as I go back to drawing and using my Corel Painter.  🙂

[Fett]

Hope you have better luck with 'em than I did. ^__^

[Matthew Lim]

Blue col-erase pencils from Prismacolor are awesome pencils. What I do is do all the construction and rough drawing with blue pencil, clean up the drawing with an HB or 2B pencil then scan into photoshop. Then in photoshop copy the blue layer in the channel box, then paste into the regular image. It gets rid of a lot of the blue pencil and leaves in the dark HB/2B pencil marks and makes cleaning up images in photoshop a million times easier.

[Anonymous]

  Non Photo Blue pencils from prisma are awesome. All the time baby! I buy like 36 at a time so I don't have to make a venture to the art store often. Perhaps it depends on the scanner, but when I scan in "grayscale" my blue lines DO NOT show up.

  My technique varies depending, sometimes I'd do the whole pic in NPB (non photo blue) then pencil in my veins first in 4H, then finish the whole thing up in H. If I have the intention of inking it then I'd just do the masses or blocking out in NPB then do the whole pic in 5H then ink it. I personally feel the end result is all the same. If you ink it first then you don't have to clean it up. If you stick with pencils then you have to clean it after scaning.

  I am unsure what I prefer, but I digress. Here is something that I started in NPB and inked then scanned and colored. Not sure how many people saw it yet. http://www.k3.dion.ne.jp/~erogro/art%20gallery%20femxman.html
 
It's the second to last pic.

[very_zenn]

When I use non-photo blue I don't have any real problem getting rid of it.  Of course this is after playing with it for a long time to figure it out.  Also I actually ink my pics so how well it will work with pencil I don't know.  Also I am doing this using Photoshop so you'll have to translate if you arn't.

After scanning the picture in full platen at 300dpi pull it up in photoshop.

Go to the Channels pallet and delete the Green Channel and then the Cyan Channel.  (This will clean it up 90%)

Go to the Image/Adjustments/Threshold option.  Set the Threshold to about 150.  (There, it's JUST B&W.  Selecting for colors is easier now)

Go to Image/Mode/Grayscale and then Image/Mode/RGB.

Done.  I have this set up as an Action in photoshop so for me its one click and done. 

Hope it helps.
Matt

[Holiday]

Thanks for the tips. I'm also trying out grey markers to create softer muscle tones.

[Author]

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