How to "Erase" Pencil Marks!

[boogster1 0]

This tutorial is available as a PDF. Click here to view or download it

 

Edit: Resized all images for people who have slower computers! Okay, how many times has this ever happened to you, and ALWAYS you? You were drawing something (in this case, I drew this part of this street intersection) with any dark pencil, but you made a mistake. A BIG mistake! You tried erasing the mistake with a latex-free eraser, but this is what you (in this case, this picture below) got! Excess pencil marks!! How in the world are you going to get rid of them? Well, with Paint.NET, you CAN get rid of the pencil marks, the easy way!

Step 1: Open your image of any drawing (if it has dark pencil marks) you've taken or scanned.

Step 2: Select the dark pencil marks (like the picture below) with the Lasso Tool :LassoTool: . This will help you focus on ONLY the pencil marks, preventing accidental mistakes. Here, I am selecting a small batch of marks as an example.

Step 3: Notice there are a handful of ways to remove pencil marks, but, in this case, I'll use the handy-dandy Clone Stamp Tool :CloneStamp: , which is the easiest way to remove pencil marks. If you want to use tool, go ahead and select it. 😉

Step 4: Enable "Anti-alias" and hold down the Ctrl Key and anchor the area you want to remove. If you scanned an image, no problem. But if you taken a small sample with your digital camera, for example, values of white or other colored area will, and I repeat, WILL differ. So anchor the stamp to the closest value as possible, until you get it right.

Step 5: Once you've anchored the area, you may start clicking to the area nearest to your anchor point. This will ensure you will have perfect values, and perfect results. If you made a mistake, try again.

Step 7: Repeat Steps 4 and 5 until you don't see any pencil marks anymore.

Step 8: Deselect. Your results will look like this:

But Wait! We're not done yet. See the imperfections here? We are going to work this out by removing them.

Step 9: To fix this problem, here's an easy thing to do. Using the Lasso Tool :LassoTool: , select all of the sharpened edges. Those edges are the imperfections. And, yet, we don't want them. Note: If you're working on a small image, with "Anti-alias" enabled, then you might skip this part.

Step 10: Once you have them selected, Click on Effects > Blurs > Unfocus.

Step 11: Set the slider to the appropriate radius. In this case, since my image is so large, I'll set it to 4.

Step 12: If you have the Feather Plugin, you can soften your selection lines for more perfect results. If you have the plugin installed, open Feather from the Blurs menu and set it to, in this case, 6.

Your results will now look like this:

Finally!! Perfect results!! (well, if you know how to!) Here is the full result:

I hope you find this tutorial interesting. Please comment if you think it's good.

[m2lucky 0]

I like this tutorial. I don't have any pencil marks but that is useful to know. If I were you I would scale down the images a bit they load pretty slow

[david.atwell 286]

You need to resize your screenshots to under 800px at their largest dimension.

[x-lox 0]

Cool

[boogster1 0]

You need to resize your screenshots to under 800px at their largest dimension.

Oops!! :oops: Sorry, I thought almost all of us had better computers. Sorry. I'll resize it, soon, until my work is done! Ok?

[Simon Brown 42]

Sorry, I thought almost all of us had better computers.

It's mainly an issue of internet connection speed.

[becauseiwantedto 0]

Very nice, this will be useful, but I had to stretch my Chrome browser to overlap 2 monitors to see the full images, so you should resize them :wink:

[boogster1 0]

I like this tutorial. I don't have any pencil marks but that is useful to know. If I were you I would scale down the images a bit they load pretty slow

Try testing it on a small piece of paper! You can draw a picture of a cartoon face but you're simulating yourself trying to draw the PERFECT circle. Reply back if you think it might work!

[becauseiwantedto 0]

Nice new sig, you used this image in it?

[boogster1 0]

Nice new sig, you used this image in it?

*ding ding ding!!!* Definitely! Love my signature results!

[Painterryu 0]

Should I enable anti-alias or not? Should I use the clone stamp on the anchor area or outside the anchor area? Where can I find the feather blurs effect?

Edited November 7, 2013 by Painterryu

[Ego Eram Reputo 2,412]

Anti-alias:  Why don't you try both and tell us which works best?

 

Clone Stamp:  The anchor defines the area to "copy from".  If you "copy to" exactly the same area as you're "copying from" nothing will change.  A slight variation between the two will overwrite the destination with the source.

 

You can find all the plugins listed in the Plugin Index

[Painterryu 0]

Anti-alias:  Why don't you try both and tell us which works best?

 

Clone Stamp:  The anchor defines the area to "copy from".  If you "copy to" exactly the same area as you're "copying from" nothing will change.  A slight variation between the two will overwrite the destination with the source.

 

You can find all the plugins listed in the Plugin Index

 

I can't find the Feather Blur effect.

[Ego Eram Reputo 2,412]

I think the Author is referring to the Feather Selection plugin.

 

 

 

Step 12: If you have the Feather Plugin...

 

It's not found in Effects > Blurs, it's found under Effects > Selection.

[Painterryu 0]

What is other "handful of ways to remove pencil marks" tools?

[shumi31 3]

For selecting the pencil mark you have choosen Lasso tool, if I use magic wand tool will it work perfectly here? Will be the selection good? And why didnt you use spot healing tool here instead?

[Ego Eram Reputo 2,412]

There is no spot healing tool. You thinking of the Clone Stamp?

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles 319]

@ shumi31

Paint.net doesn't have a spot healing brush. If you like a spot healing effect, then you might like this plugin :

http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/25146-selection-obscureremovinghiding/

I think there was another plugin very similar to the one above, but I don't remember what it was called.

Edited November 30, 2015 by Cc4FuzzyHuggles