How to Color Line Art in Photoshop

Last Updated: June 19, 2022

Many people use Adobe Photoshop for photo editing, but you may not realize how else you can use it. If you like to color, you can turn any line drawing (also known as line art) into a fun coloring project with Photoshop.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Setting Up

1
Find the artwork that you want to color. There are many places online where you can locate free line art. Just use your search engine and search for "line art" or "lineart."
- If you have a particular interest, search for the line art and the topic. Such as "anime line art". Anime has fans all over the world and will have a lot of line art.
2
Flatten your image if there is more than one layer.

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3
Select Image >> Mode >> Grayscale.
4
Go to the "Channels" palette. Click the small icon at the bottom for "Load Channel as Selection".
5
Go back to the "Layers" palette and rename the background. You might choose 'Line art', for example. This has the dual purpose of changing the background to a layer and identifying the layer.
6
Press Delete and then deselect (Ctrl+D).
7
Go to Layer >> Matting >> Remove White Matte.
8
Change the "Mode" of the image to RGB by going to Image >> Mode >> RGB Color.
9
Create a blank layer and move it beneath the line art layer. Name it "Color." Color is an arbitrary name simply meant to identify the use of the layer. If you have different naming conventions, feel free to use them.
10
Create another blank layer, and fill it with your chosen color. White is a good one, but any light color you choose to use will work.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Keeping It Inside the Lines

1
Be sure to save the image in the native PSD format. This will preserve the layer structure.
2
Using a selection tool, like the "Magic Wand" or the "Quick Selection" tool, select as much of the area around line art.
3
Try to select as much of the image that is not the line art.
4
Invert (⇧ Shift+Ctrl+I) the selection. What this has done is isolate the part that you are going to fill in.
5
Pick a fairly obnoxious (or primary), color. Red or yellow are good choices.
6
Fill in the selection with the color you chose. Don't worry if you see pieces that didn't get selected. A large, hard brush is good for that.
7
Deselect everything when you’re done using the selection to simplify filling in your line art.
8
Zoom in to see any spots that should, or shouldn't, be colored in. Clean up so that every part of the image that you will want to color is covered up with a color.
9
Select the Lock transparent pixels icon in the "Layers" palette. This is what keeps you from coloring outside of the line art.
10
Start coloring your line art.
- Be advised that you won't color outside of the line art, but this method will not keep you within the lines inside of the line art. For that, you need to make further selections.