I'm writing this for a friend but thought I might as well share it here in the process.

Note: My version of Adobe Photoshop is in a different language, I have explained everything in English throughout the screenshots are in Danish.

If you're like me, lazy to no limits, then this tutorial is something for you! Usually when people do colored outlines (e.g. the line that goes around Jazz's sprite is a very dark green instead of black), they redraw the whole outlining in colors. But there is a cheaper and easier way of doing so!

Before we start, it's important that you can work clean and effectively with your drawing. Here is a good example of how you shouldn't work with colored outlines:



Why? Because the shading and background makes it harder to see the outlines! And if you don't have an extremely good computer, their display will also slow down your computer's processing. So make sure to de-check the display of all layers besides the outlining you want to color and the flat color of the figures. It's simply de-checking that little icon for all layers that will interfere with your work. You can always toggle them back when you're done!

Step 1: Select your work area.

On the layer panel, find the layer which you have your outlines on and select it.



Then unto the piece itself, select the magic wand tool and use it to select all of your outlines.



You should de-check the display of your coloring temporarily to make this easier although it's not necessary. To add more than one line to your selection, hold down shift while using the magic wand and a + will appear to the cursor. This means addition to your selection while holding down alt will cause a - to appear and have opposite effect.

If you have a clue about using the magic wand then you should know how you want your settings. Otherwise, the standard will do. You can check if they're set to the standard using mine:



You might run into that you miss-click once a while and the selection changes beyond expectation. Then all you have to do is hit ctrl+alt+z to undo (and you should get used to this keybind for undoing in Photoshop because ctrl+z are limited to only one step back). If you have difficulty selection something, don't be afraid to use the zoom tool (it won't deselect anything switching tools) to get a larger view and thus make it easier to click.

Once you have selected all your lines, it should look like this:



What this selection will do is to limit the area of which you draw to the selection, which means that basically you'll be drawing in your own outlines now!

But. Always a but. The lines become “pixel by pixel” and not very smooth coloring when coloring with selection, so that's our next task - You want to create a slightly thinner version of your black line art. Because the outlines will be thinner, when you color inside them the resulting colored areas will trap under your real black outlines. Zoom in on an outline and use select -> modify -> contraction to shrink your selection so that only about one pixel of the black outline is visible outside the selection.



In this case, I contracted 2 pixels but it can vary depending on how smooth your outlines are.

Now! Create a new layer and call it "Outlines Color" or something. Make sure the new layer stays selected. De-check the visibility () of your original outlines layer and check the visibility of your colors (if you de-checked them earlier to select the outlines). You should now get something kinky to work with that looks like this:



And we are ready to work!

Step 2: Coloring the outlines.

For coloring your outlines, I suggest using the pipette tool. Simply select it on your toolbar and draw a nearby color. Then as the drawn color appears on your toolbar, click it to edit. What you want to do is to darken the color to fit an outline.



The box with two colors left from the OK button indicates what color you are editing it to (upper) and what color you previously had (bottom). As you can see, I have darkened my color a fair bit. You can do this by either picking a darker color from the huge color palette to the far left of the window or edit the L (lightning) value to something lower (e.g. 0).

Then it's just about start using the brush tool on your selection. I suggest using the pipette tool regularly to keep your outline in match with the coloring.

Tip: You can check how far you are on the color outlines by deselecting your selection then reselect it once you've done your check using undo (ctrl + alt + z). It's also easy to see if you missed any lines this way.

Tip: Any outlines you want black, you don't have to color. Remember you have some black line out lying just beneath.

Tip: If you missed any lines with the selection, wait with doing them till after you're done with your current selection. You can't shrink the size of a selection specifically - decreasing the newly added lines size will also decrease all other lines'.

When you're done coloring, check back the display of your black outlines and zoom in. You'll notice it looks rather ugly!



To fix this, make sure you have your colored outline layer selected. Choose Filter>Blur>Gausian Blur. Make the blur one pixel wide and you'll notice a significant change!



There are also two optional things you can do to improve the look:

* Edit the outline colors' layer to "screen" to make it fit better on the dark lines.
* Or just hide the display of the black outlines; the only problem that could occur is if the coloring isn't wide enough to support the slight thinner lines thus creating a slight "wide" space.

Toggle the display of all your others layers back on and you're all set! Now we can compare our work and the difference it made!

Awesome, but please, don't use Comic Sans MS

I'll see if I can give some more detailed criticism when I get home.

Originally Posted by STIJN

Awesome, but please, don't use Comic Sans MS

I need a good comic font and it's the closest I have. If you have a better, please share it? *puppy eyes*

http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=101

Perhaps there's something in there?

There's a font called "I Hate Comic Sans".

Brilliant man. XD

http://bancomicsans.com/home.html

In seriousness, thank you for such a nice thread.

...and if you don't want black outlines around color outlines, just work on the original outline layer or duplicate it for safety. Make sure they're not antialiased then, though. A good habit is to scan your lineart in high resolution and then set it to monochromatic image mode for a moment, or if you draw the lineart with tablet, use the pencil tool. You can shrink the finished image to add antialias and make it web friendly, plus you also have a high definition image for pritinting, too.

Also, http://www.fontfreak.com/

It's so tempting to make an "Easy Color Outlines in Illustrator" tutorial D=.

Originally Posted by Radium

It's so tempting to make an "Easy Color Outlines in Illustrator" tutorial D=.

In a comic form!

Originally Posted by Radium

It's so tempting to make an "Easy Color Outlines in Illustrator" tutorial D=.

Is Illustrator any better for the comic style I run than Adobe Photoshop? What's the differences between? Do tell.

Illustrator is (almost) entirely vector-based, which is way cooler than raster-based when doing things like, well, illustrations :P