Need Photoshop help...anyone?

[Neshanic]

I can't get the background to pure white. Can someone help?

[Omphaloskepsis]

1. Background of what?

Existing image or new one?

On a new one:
File --> New



Edit: spelling..

[Neshanic]

2. I have a scan at 300 DPI and I need to get it as white as possible,

it's a ink drawing, but the I need to get the background pure white.

Thanks for helping!

[stuntcat]

4. that's sounds different than how I was thinking

it sounds harder :o Good luck though!

[Omphaloskepsis]

6. I can't really explain how to do that very well with words.

If you can post the the image I would be happy to try and do it for you. It really depends on the image. I can think of ten different ways of doing it. I would have to see the image to figure out the best way.

The Background Eraser Tool might be the best place to start.. But, it really depends on the image.

[stuntcat]

3. I know how to make a background just around the edge

Is that what you wanna do? To make a white background around the original thing though I go to Image, then click Canvas size, then whatever I change the size to is where the background will be.

[Neshanic]

5. Its a ink sketch, then scanned...

but I need the background pure white, the scan comes across wiyh a very slight tone.

[Call Me Wesley]

7. Can you adjust it with curves?

Or with Brightness/Contrast? :hi:

[Omphaloskepsis]

8. Curves was my first thought too.

I'm afraid it might be a little overwhelming for someone asking this question.

[Call Me Wesley]

9. Agreed. Brightness/Contrast might be easier.

Scanning white paper always comes out tainted, but if it's just black and white, this should be very easy to adjust. :hi:

[grace0418]

14. Or levels might help (easier than curves).

Scanning is such a pain sometimes.

[Neshanic]

10. I threw it into Image Ready and did an automatic...This should

hold the client today. It cleaned up the background to almost a pure white.

I draw black ink on white paper, and then scan the paper. When the scan is put in photoshop the "white" background is not a absolute white. Then I add color to theimage with a Wacom tablet. The problem is when you take a scanned image, how to get the background back to an absolute white.

[Neshanic]

11. Thanks for all your help gang! I have been drawing all night,

and the issue with muddy scan is because Vista does not have a driver for ny 5550c HP Scanjet.

If any of you want it, it's a great little machine, but now will not work on my computer with Vista, and no drivers will be made for it.

Any takers? It's yours.

I had to take it to get scanned at a 24Hour Kinkos...at 2am.

[begin_within]

12. I would use the "Levels" command

Image -> Adjustments -> Levels
or Command-L on a Mac.

The Levels command gives you a histogram, showing approximately how many pixels there are at each level of brightness. This will help you lighten the background just enough to make them white, witout affecting the pixels that make up the line drawing much. In the Levels dialog box, there are 3 eyedropper tools. Click on the furthest right (with the white 'liqid' in it) and then click on an area of your image that you want to be pure white. It will adust the levels of all the pixels in the image, so the histogram will change and the background should look white. If this is satisfactory, click OK and then save the file. Instead of using the eyedropper, you can also use the little white triangle that appears just below the histogram, slide it to the left a tiny bit. Or you can type in numbers in the Levels dialog box. Next to "Input levels" change the 255 to say, 250 or so, depending on how much the background needs to be lightened. The advantage of the Levels dialog box is that the histogram gives you a graphic representation of the brightness of the pixels, helping to guide you how much lightening you have to do, to make the background white.

[DS1]

15. better to use the levels adjustment layer

that way the original data is saved ;-)

[grace0418]

19. Yes, adjustment layers and layer masks are your friends.

I learned that the hard way.

[hyphenate]

13. If the drawing is just black and white

Then the solution is extremely simple.

Resave the image as a GIF file, and then reduce the number of colors to 2. The black will stay black and the rest of the image will convert to white. You might want to call up the color selection and make sure that the image is reading 00000 and ffffff for those colors which are pure black and pure white.

If you need further info, I'll post screen shots.

[KurtNYC]

16. set background color to pure white, magic wand existing bkgrd, delete

[China_cat]

17. Why not select the background and just delete it,

leaving your work on a transparent background? Then when it prints out, the paper color (white) will be the bg and perfect. (Will also save some file size.)

[grace0418]

18. It depends on the drawing. If it's black ink with hard edges that will work fine but

if it's charcoal or has lots of blending and hatching, selecting and deleted will cause some weird edges and lost pixels. If it were me, I'd use curves and/or levels to get the contrast where I wanted it. Then I'd make a layer mask to carefully remove any extraneous non-white areas.

[China_cat]

21. The OP said it was an ink drawing.

Of course that wouldn't work with charcoal or shaded work without a super good masking option.

[grace0418]

22. Yes, but even an ink drawing can have smudgy areas and cross-hatching.

Or sometimes even really thin lines don't have enough pixels to avoid being selected. I've had that happen before, much to my chagrin.

[Elidor]

20. ...

[Neshanic]

23. Now that my deadline is over, I am going back to try all your kind suggestions.

Now that I have some breathing room, I will try what you guys suggest tonight!

Thanks again, and I really appreciate it.