How can I accomplish this line coloring in Paint.NET?

[dulips]

Hi y'all, this video shows how to color line art in Photoshop and I was curious if there was a way to get the same result in Paint.NET. It would be great if it was something I could do tool wise so I could use my stylus to do the coloring. The recolor tool is the closest thing I could find, but I can't seem to get the same great, clean result as in Photoshop.

 

The video in question (skipped to the effect I'm looking for): https://youtu.be/HnxO-mbVyU4?t=3m

 

Thanks!

[MJW]

I can't really say I understand what the video is trying to achieve. If you want to change the color of the black and gray areas to different colors, you could add a new upper layer with its blend mode set to Additive Screen, and initially fill it with black. Whatever colors you set the upper layer to will now recolor the dark areas of the image while leaving the white areas unchanged. Adjusting the opacity of the layer will determine the strength of the recoloring.

 

EDIT:  Changed Additive to Screen. Additive will result in color shifts.

Edited March 21, 2016 by MJW

[dulips]

I can't really say I understand what the video is trying to achieve. If you want to change the color of the black and gray areas to different colors, you could add a new upper layer with its blend mode set to Additive, and initially fill it with black. Whatever colors you set the upper layer to will now recolor the dark areas of the image while leaving the white areas unchanged. Adjusting the opacity of the layer will determine the strength of the recoloring.

I guess the best way I could describe what I feel like it's doing right is that in PS I can paint over the original in a new layer and it's like it plops down my new color in the exact pattern and opacity of the old on a per-pixel basis.

[MJW]

On second thought, I think Screen blend mode will work better than Additive, but other than that, it's not obvious to me how the effect is much different from the video.

[dulips]

On second thought, I think Screen blend mode will work better than Additive, but other than that, it's not obvious to me how the effect is much different from the video.

Ahh Screen is very good actually, I might be able to make that work. Thanks!

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

One way of doing things in paint.net is to use an adjustment from the adjustment tab to turn the lines gray (such as using lightness from hue/saturation). Then duplicate and turn the lines to a new color using sepia, or levels, or hue/saturation. Keep duplicating and changing the colors of the lines till each color has it's own layer. Then erase away on each layer the parts you don't want colored some colors.

 

For example, lets say you have line art of a person. The head would be blue lines, the body green lines, and the limbs pink lines. On the head layer, erase everything but the head. On the limbs layer, erase everything but the limbs. On the body layer, erase everything but the body. Each part will be it's own color on it's own layer, but when all the layers are turned on, they will make up the whole image.

 

This is a bit of a backwards way of doing things, since, instead of painting your lines the color you want, you are changing the colors using adjustments and then erasing away what you don't want on the various layers.

 

And Tip: you can adjust the opacity of the eraser tool. Click "More" in the colors window and lower the Opacity - Alpha. This could allow you to have some color blending and merging.

 

You could also try seeing if the suggestions in these old threads about recoloring help you :

http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/32157-how-i-can-turn-a-black-object-into-pink/#entry429850

 

http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/107059-change-color/

Edited March 21, 2016 by Cc4FuzzyHuggles

[dulips]

One way of doing things in paint.net is to use an adjustment from the adjustment tab to turn the lines gray (such as using lightness from hue/saturation). Then duplicate and turn the lines to a new color using sepia, or levels, or hue/saturation. Keep duplicating and changing the colors of the lines till each color has it's own layer. Then erase away on each layer the parts you don't want colored some colors.

 

For example, lets say you have line art of a person. The head would be blue lines, the body green lines, and the limbs pink lines. On the head layer, erase everything but the head. On the limbs layer, erase everything but the limbs. On the body layer, erase everything but the body. Each part will be it's own color on it's own layer, but when all the layers are turned on, they will make up the whole image.

 

This is a bit of a backwards way of doing things, since, instead of painting your lines the color you want, you are changing the colors using adjustments and then erasing away what you don't want on the various layers.

 

You could also try seeing if the suggestions in these old threads about recoloring help you :

http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/32157-how-i-can-turn-a-black-object-into-pink/#entry429850

 

http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/107059-change-color/

Hmm.. that's not a bad idea. Only thing is that I wonder how well I'd be able to consistently replicate it since I have a bunch of images to do this on and I'd want them as close to the same color as possible.

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

There is always the fill tool and then the Alpha Mask plugin. Make your color or use the color picker tool, then fill a blank layer. Go to your black lines images, select all, copy. Go to your color layer, and run the Alpha Mask plugin, invert setting.