Transparent Background in Drawings: How-To
I have been getting many e-mails asking about how I convert my drawings from paper to tee-shirts, with a transparent background.
Here’s how I do it:
I scan my drawings, then if needed, I clean them up by erasing extra marks and such. Then I use a photoshop action that can be downloaded here:
This action is for Adobe photoshop only!
How it works: this works only with black/white images (colored images will be automatically converted to b/w), and basically converts everything to black, but the lighter areas become various transparencies of black (this results in various shades of gray when viewed against any background).
After you apply the action, you end up with two layers: background (white) and outlines (the drawing). I delete the background layer, and…ta-da!!
If I choose to color the design, then I create another layer, and put it underneath the outlines layer, so that the color would go under the black outlines.
Note: tweak your contrast and levels BEFORE applying the action, as you won’t be able to tweak anything afterward because your drawing will be technically all BLACK.
I tried to explain this as best as I could, and hope this makes sense to everyone.
Feel free to ask any further questions!!
Olga
Here are some samples of my work where I used this process: 1st one is a pencil drawing, and the 2nd was drawn in pen.
zomboy
great tip – thanks!!
Jeffrey Phillips
nice one. iv been doing it manually all this time :-)
olechka replied
I’ve spent many, many hours doing this by hand before finding this. And still, I would have never been able to do by hand what this action does :)
dimarie
oh you are a gem!
thankyou so much i’ve been trying to figure this out for ages! :)
you’re a star!!!
AnitaInverarity
Thank you- great info xxxxx
zomboy
after looking at the re-releases of your shirts, Im totally convinced that this method is simply amazing. You have seriously opened up a new world for me because this means I can seriously start looking at photography and using it for T’s as well.
olechka replied
I am glad that this will be useful for you. Most of my designs originate from drawings on paper, and in most cases, start out as random scribbles/doodles on crappy paper. This method allows me to transform ANYTHING into a decent tee design. I am looking forward to seeing more work form you :)
zomboy
Thanks Olechka – and I mean that! You just made someones day great!!
oksancia
thank you for the great tip! :) Well done!
chelsgus
Thank you very much for sharing this, Olga.
I, too have struggled with the manual way – not a fantastic result.
I think Red Bubble’s going to see a lot more tees from people applying this technique!
olechka replied
You are very welcome. I hope so, I would love to see more traditional art used in tee-shirt designing!
Martin Jones
What a fantastic action. I’ve been working on one of my photos to be put on to a tee for weeks and this has done it in one morning! Genius.
olechka
Does anyone know whether there is something like this for converting colored images? I’ve looked all over but cannot find anything…
C J Hummel - ...
Cool advice.
altonkane
This is a God-send!
Ahhhhh you’ve helped me to slavage what’s left of the hair on my head!
A stress free solution!! Thanks a million Olechka!
theyellowfury
Thanks for this Olechka.
Steph Granshaw
thanks Olechka this is really, really helpful
chelsgus
Hmm, can’t get it to work (that’d be me though…)
olechka replied
Make sure you are using Adobe CS, and the image starts out as jpeg… what exactly is not working?
MuscularTeeth
wow very interesting read…
Shakira Rivers
the ps action is great, thank you!!!
And you work is amazing by the way!
LemonSnap
Thanks for pointing us to the action. I’ve been doing this manually and will look forward to giving the action a try.
Very helpful.
cherryT
how would i do this manually?! i dont have photoshop, only paint.NET…?
olechka replied
Sorry for the delayed response, but I don’t know how to do it manually :(
Alexandra Felgate
Hi Olechka
I found your journal and thought BRILLIANT, but have discovered that the when I click on the link there is nothing there to download (although it says there is!)
Any suggestions?
olechka replied
Looks like the action moved, but I found the new link. I updated the link in this journal, or you can click HERE to download.
Alexandra Felgate
Thank you!!!!!
bev langby
Havent done a tee yet , but may one day so thanks….
Alyson Pearson
Sounds too good to be true! I will definitely give it a go and if I can get it to work it’d be awesome. Thanks so much for sharing :)
Alyson Pearson
Yay, I got it to work :)
Have you had any luck in finding an action like this for colour images??
Now that would be cool!
olechka replied
Great, glad it worked for you. No, I haven’t found a way to do this with colored images. The only way I can make them colored is to do color or gradient overlay on the black layer (you can see this effect in some of my most recent works). If I find a way, I’ll definitely post a journal about it.
LeighAth
I finally had a chance to use this and it worked!
Here’s what I came up with
Thanks for this useful photoshop action :).
Bekyy93 7 days ago
THANKYOU SO MUCH :D