Post by dutton on Jul 7, 2005 21:06:20 GMT -7
Craftint doubletone paper is one of those things an ink illustrator had in their toolbox before the advent of the digital toolset or even rubdown tone systems like Zip-a-Tone. It wasn't cheap and it gradually fell out of use. Howard Chaykin uses it quite often, though he prefers the graphite/charcoal pattern over the hatched lines I've chosen to work with here.
Now, I'm a digital guy these days, but I prefer to use my computer as the greatest separations tool ever devised by man. So I wanted to recreate Craftint and use it now, because I could never afford it when I was younger.
Craftint had two patterns on it. Apply one chemical to it with a brush or pen and the first pattern was revealed. Use another chemical and the other pattern came up. It required careful planning and tone management, because once the tone or tones were revealed your only option was to take it to white or black. Erasing and reapplying tone was impossible.
Photoshop overcomes these limitations with unlimited undos and redos.
I began in Illustrator with an 11x17 sheet (I normally draw my comic pages at 10x15 on 11x17). I applied a 45 degree angle .25 point line across the whole page, making sure they were relatively tightly spaced. In my case, there are more than 16 per inch. Exporting the Illustrator file as a 600dpi greyscale Photoshop image, it comes into Photoshop as a transparent layer.
Download the Photoshop setup image and follow along:
I created a new layer and put it at the bottom. Filled with white. Named it "paper".
Named the left sloping lines layer "tint left".
Duplicated the tint layer and flipped it. Named it "tint right".
Created two more layers and placed each of them above the tones. These are the analogue to the chemicals. Called "reveals".
From here, place your transparent lineart on a top layer or alpha channel. Now begin to erase parts of the reveal. You'll erase the left reveal first, keeping in mind that it will also contribute to the doubletone when you erase the right reveal. If you screw up, just add white to the reveal layer. Pressure sensitive brushes with a tablet work well. I prefer to use them in pencil mode to keep the tones crisp and not fading out where the eraser is applied.
Now, I've kept my sizes and resolutions quite high because I'm thinking of print output. They clot up at 72 dpi if you shrink them too small. You can adapt this method for web comics by using less lines per inch, a fatter line and lower resolutions. Say a .5 line, 8 per inch and 150 dpi. That's a guess. You'll have to experiment.
See the final result.
Now, I'm a digital guy these days, but I prefer to use my computer as the greatest separations tool ever devised by man. So I wanted to recreate Craftint and use it now, because I could never afford it when I was younger.
Craftint had two patterns on it. Apply one chemical to it with a brush or pen and the first pattern was revealed. Use another chemical and the other pattern came up. It required careful planning and tone management, because once the tone or tones were revealed your only option was to take it to white or black. Erasing and reapplying tone was impossible.
Photoshop overcomes these limitations with unlimited undos and redos.
I began in Illustrator with an 11x17 sheet (I normally draw my comic pages at 10x15 on 11x17). I applied a 45 degree angle .25 point line across the whole page, making sure they were relatively tightly spaced. In my case, there are more than 16 per inch. Exporting the Illustrator file as a 600dpi greyscale Photoshop image, it comes into Photoshop as a transparent layer.
Download the Photoshop setup image and follow along:
I created a new layer and put it at the bottom. Filled with white. Named it "paper".
Named the left sloping lines layer "tint left".
Duplicated the tint layer and flipped it. Named it "tint right".
Created two more layers and placed each of them above the tones. These are the analogue to the chemicals. Called "reveals".
From here, place your transparent lineart on a top layer or alpha channel. Now begin to erase parts of the reveal. You'll erase the left reveal first, keeping in mind that it will also contribute to the doubletone when you erase the right reveal. If you screw up, just add white to the reveal layer. Pressure sensitive brushes with a tablet work well. I prefer to use them in pencil mode to keep the tones crisp and not fading out where the eraser is applied.
Now, I've kept my sizes and resolutions quite high because I'm thinking of print output. They clot up at 72 dpi if you shrink them too small. You can adapt this method for web comics by using less lines per inch, a fatter line and lower resolutions. Say a .5 line, 8 per inch and 150 dpi. That's a guess. You'll have to experiment.
See the final result.