[Tutorial] Greys - The Fast And Awesome Way

[DarthMonkey]

Well, here's something that lots of cleaners dread: Greys. They're boring, tedious and generally unrewarding - unless you have a TECHNIQUE!:watch_the_thumb:

So, how do we get from A to B in 10 minutes or less, and have a result that actually looks clean?

Before:
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/1479/35232062rc3.png

After:
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/9513/18qw6.png

(Yes, I know i made her ear grey... oopsy)

Well, just read on to find out!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

We'll start, of course, by making a layer for your grey area.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/7789/74121542lv9.png

When that's done. it's time to fill they grey area with... you guessed it, grey! I don't care how you do it; Brush, Pen, Lasso - Heck, you could even use the Free Transform Tool if you have some wierdo technique to do it like that. And what's real nice is that it doesn't matter if you're a little sloppy: Covering the lines is fine as long as you don't go outside them - in fact, it's better if you cover the lines!

So, whatever method you used you should have something like this:

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/1907/54106225rh0.th.png (http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=54106225rh0.png)

Now make the grey layer invisible.

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1290/23239391ic6.png

Now comes the cool part! Go to Select > Color Range:

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/9114/51983869te5.png

This window should appear, or something like it:

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/3270/71776548dr9.th.png (http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=71776548dr9.png)

Leave that window open and go click a border line or something on the image. Anything that's black will do. This lets it know you want to select everything that's black in the entire image, kinda like a mask. Set the fuzziness (awesome word) to something as high as you can without getting splotches of selection where you want it to be grey. It also helps to have it set to "Selection" and "Selection Preview: Grayscale"

Okay, now click Okay... heh...

You should now have this:

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/6393/57740011vr6.th.png (http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=57740011vr6.png)

Now make your grey layer visible again.

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/9785/60704238dl7.png

Do Edit > Clear 3 times. Make sure the grey layer is selected first. If you want to have bolder lines then do Blur Mask @1px after this step, then repeat this step. Be sure to deselect afterwards.

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/3310/22883514xd6.png

Now you have something like this! It's starting to take shape now!

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/3981/10rr7.th.png (http://img215.imageshack.us/my.php?image=10rr7.png)

Whew, okay now that we have an idea of what we're doing here, it's time to make it look nice an' purdy. (I'm from the South, that's how we talk... sometimes)

Put some Gaussian Blur action on the grey layer at 1px. like so:

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/461/11ny5.png

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/2290/12sk0.th.png (http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=12sk0.png)

And you will have something like this:

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/6756/13me3.th.png (http://img139.imageshack.us/my.php?image=13me3.png)

Woot! Now those lines are a bit cleaner! Time to make the grey itself pretty now. Do some Add Noise. I do it at 9.75% but you can do whatever you want.

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/4846/14in3.png

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/5459/15ue8.th.png (http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=15ue8.png)

Okay, now we have a really dark grey! yay! Time to make it lighter. Go to Layer Properties for your grey layer. Here's one way to get there:

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/1461/16zf3.png

Now go to Color Overlay, make it ffffff (White) and set "Blend Mode" to "Linear Light" (Or any of the other Light Settings, each one yields a different effect). Set it to a low percentage, adjust that percentage till it looks like you want it to.

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/514/17be6.th.png (http://img140.imageshack.us/my.php?image=17be6.png)

Now you have this:

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/1753/18tr4.th.png (http://img411.imageshack.us/my.php?image=18tr4.png)

You're done! But wait! There's still more you can do! You can make it less flat with Gradient Overlay, back in the Layer Properties Window.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/9171/19nz4.th.png (http://img215.imageshack.us/my.php?image=19nz4.png)

Mess around with it, Layer Properties is an awesome tool set! Have fun with it!

Here's my "After" with the Gradient Overlay settings in that screenshot:

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/11/20jv6.th.png (http://img341.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20jv6.png)

[mab]

wow very nice indeed i will try now :D

thanx man so much :D

[kenjimaru]

wow - another guru. This is similar to what i learn from veni-sama before he stop teaching fast methods to people. You da man DarthMonkey. Thanks for sharing- now lets say thank you again :DotheMonkey: yaaaaaaarrrr!!!

[akan]

nice :D learned a new way to do it now ;D but the lins in the hair was weaker after : / but will try it out when i get the time :)

[DarthMonkey]

Yeah, with the steps I described it does weaken the lines. If you want bolder lines then you should do Blur Mask @ 1px before clearing. I'll add that to that step now.

[real0st]

Really cool method. I know someone who used this method but never shared it with me. Now I ca gloat in his face that I now know his method of graying. Kudos to you, kudos to you.

[rengwei]

wow very cool method....nvr heard of this...
thx for sharing Darth...:hail:
i'll try it out soon :D

[DarthMonkey]

What do i have to do to get this stickied? hehe

[rengwei]

nothing...i'll stickied it for u :p
since this is good tutorial after all :D

[B-One]

I shalt try this out!!!!!

[rengwei]

i tried it out...seems pretty good :D
except i find that the "blur mask @ 1px" step is a must...else the lines get too thin :D

[Annita]

oh very nice one . :) i like it. Must save to comp xD

[DarthMonkey]

i find that the "blur mask @ 1px" step is a must...else the lines get too thin :D

Yeah for lots of things it probably is a must . The quality of the scan, the art style and how much is selected by "Color Range..." are all factors in that. For Mashima's art it's generally not super-important, but I can imagine that it would be in lots of other stuff.

[Linkmasta]

Thanks alot for this tutorial, really speeds things up in greying. ^^

[kenji_37]

good work man...... I'll get some ideas for colouring with your tutorials.... thanks

[Monkey D. Shiranui]

damn!!
this is very good tutorial..
thank you to tell us about this!!
bwahahaha~

[kenjimaru]

Franky House is awesome training ground for everyone :fh:

[makhan]

Found some time to try it and I have to say it's awesome XD
Really great thing, thanks for sharing this technique with us :D

[chiresakura]

I finally sat down to give this method a try, but the problem is that the gray I need to redraw is dot-tone. Black dots. So when I try to select the black color range, it selects the dots as well.

Is there a way to use this method on an area like this? You can see what happened when I made the selection.

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8796/picture3fw5.png
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/9374/picture2ru5.png