So you've drawn what you came to draw...how do you digitize it?
Top 10 System Recommendations:
A great system (for PC) consist of
1) A Pentium III or AMD Athelon Processor
600-700mhz
2) 256 MB of Ram
3) 32mb Video Card
4) 13-25 Gig hard drive
5) A Wacom Tablet (shown at Right)
6) A 5 button Mouse
7) a 19-22 inch monitor
8) Adobe Photoshop 5.5
9) A digital Camera
10) A Scanner

I'm not going to get into what brands I think are the best because I don't want to start any arguments. Just find what works for you.



My Wacom PenPartner II and Logitech MousMan +

What Scanner should I buy?:
I bought a cheap scanner at Costco (a MAG Innoscan DTS-3060) for about $100.00. It works fine for web and lineart..if you're looking to do hirez print work for magazines you may want something a little more high end. My Mag is working very well for me though proving you don't have to drop $3000.00 for something decent. You'll get faster performance from a USB or SCSI interface scanner than from a parallel port scanner.

What Size should I scan my line art at?
Scan your blacklines as 150 to 300 dpi greyscale images. I know that Black and White is an option but Greyscale gives you a smoother line. Adjust the contrast using "curves" in photoshop. Make sure to reduce your resolution to 72dpi before saving it for Web use. Photoshop 5.5 will do this for you automatically.

How does a Wacom Tablet work with Photoshop?
Photoshop takes adavantage of the Pressure sensitive capabilities of your Wacom Tablet. You can now contraol the opacity, strokewidth and color of the paint tools sinmple by pressing harder or softer on the tablet. You can tweak which pressure options it uses by going to the tool options palette and checking/unchecking boxes in the "Stylus" section on the lower half of the pallette. That way you can set your airrush to be effected by stroke size but not opacity or opacity and not stroke size. You can also set the index finger button on the stylus to perform Photoshop keyboard shortcuts. I keep mine set to "Alt"(Alt in Photoshop will bring up the eyedropper tool if you have a paint tool currently selected) so when I'm painting I can just press it and grab the color I need from the art I'm working on.

Need more help?
Let me know what I can add here to help you with your computer art needs

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