Does anyone know a quicker way of coloring in Photoshop?

[shaneoid77]

What I do is, after doing the line art, I'd use the magnetic lasso tool over the figure, then paint bucket the lasso and use the pencil (not brush) tool to fill in the places the lasso tool missed. Then highlight this with the magic want tool and use a different layer for each flat colour using the pencil tool. Hope this helps

[indagold]

This applies to thick black lineart:
To color have the lineart on a separate layer and make sure the background is white. Make an empty layer underneath for the colors and select the magic wand. Make sure all the options are checked as well as sampling all layers. Select a spot or multiple spots you want to fill, then under select options on top expand the fill to about 1-3 pixels depending on line width. Finally fill the color on the empty later. Repeat. If the lineart is on a white background such as scanned in art have the layer above it designated as the fill layer and change the blending mode to multiply or linear burn.

Seriously this is the easiest it gets. People will tell you do ridiculous things to get it colored. I've used photoshop since I was a wee baby so this is what i've done for years. Doesn't destroy linework and doesn't make you resort to pencil tools or removing anti-aliasing lol

[60Six]

I use the wand tool to select my line art, however, to ensure I don't get any of that white outline, I expand the selection, so it actually colors a bit under the line art. Example:
Without expanding the selection:

With expanded selection:

Still requires a little clean up, but still goes a hell of a lot faster as long as your line art is clean.
To do this (in case you don't know), just make the selection with your magic wand tool, then go to Select > Modify > Expand, and then expand depending on the thickness of your line art.
To speed this up anymore, I set the expand option as a hot key, so all I have to do is hit F2 to open up the expand selection option, then enter.
Also, shift F5 to open up the fill options! Find every hot key you can.
Hope that makes remotely any sense, I don't feel like I did a fantastic job explaining :'D

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

My problem with this method is that sometimes I don't close the lines all the way or I've got too many small parts and the magic wand becomes a huge pain in the butt.

[NickRowler]

My tips (OK this might be a little bit complicated)

Coloring Large Areas
-Have a picture with no gaps in the line art.
-Use the selection tool to select the area you want to color
-Then go to Select > Modify > Expand
-If your lines are thin, do 1. For thicker lines, put a larger number.
-Go to a new layer and fill in with the bucket tool
-Clean up the corners

Coloring Small Areas
-Set your brush Mode to "Behind"
-If you draw with a new color, it will not cover up the previously used color
-If you do mess up, Lock transparency on the layer by pressing "Square" icon on the Layer panel
-This will let you only draw on top of what is already on the layer

Adding Shading/Highlights
-Create a new layer above the flat color
-Right click on it and select Create Clipping Mask
-It works similar to the Lock Transparency option however you can add multiple layers
-Set the layer Mode to Multiply for darks and Screen for highlights
-You can undo the mask by going back in the the menu or just pulling it away from the layer

Recoloring
-Lock transparency
-Use the bucket tool
-This will not mess up you edges

Quick Color Selection
-Hold down the Option key on a Mac to get a quick dropper tool
-Under the color picker window, if you check "Only Web Colors" you can also get a smaller pallet
-Pressing "X" will quickly switch between your foreground and background color.

Other tips
-B for brush
-E for eraser
-R for rotate
-Number keys for change in opacity. 1 = 10%...5=50%...0=100%
-Use a layer with a solid color which you use to color in your whites, you might discard this layer later or use it as a BG. In order for Clipping Mask to work, you need to fill in your whites

[indagold]

you have to close the lines and paint in the smaller parts. It's a problem that can't be fixed unfortunately.

[LoboSong_Hitaka5Ever]

I use SAI but this same concept works in Photoshop. Depending on file size, I take a 5-10 pixel brush and color along the edge of the outer lines on a base layer. Then I fill it in via the bucket tool. There are small nooks and crannies that are missed, so I take a larger brush to fill them in. Or I've seen people use the select brush tool (idk if PS has that or not) and select the areas of lines that are NOT closed off, and then they use the wand the rest of the way. You can also do the outside (background) and invert the selection to get inside the lines

If you're more of a visual learning person, I made a tut a while back. Its specifically for SAI, but a lot of the same tools apply in most art programs. If you go down a short ways, I put the easy way and the tedious way of making a base color layer: http://hitaka5ever.deviantart.com/art/Paint-Tool-SAI-Color-Shading-Tutorial-571917072

[NickRowler]

This is sort of my process when it comes to shading

I block out all my shadows in red. This allows me to quickly shade both the light and dark colors at the same time.

I set the layer mode to multiply

I then lock the layer transparency, fill in the area with the color I want (in this example light grey, the same tone as the women's bags)
For darker areas, I will select the color area.
For larger color areas, uncheck Contiguous. This will allow you to select ALL of the same color. Tolerance can effect how you select similar colors. I usually set is to "10"

With the area selected, I go the the clip mask layer and use the fill bucket. Similar to the selection tool, unchecking Contiguous will allow you to fill in any color which is similar.

For dark grey of the backpack lady's shirt, I use a grey shade which is similar to the color of her hair.
For the darkest grey. I use the same color so that it comes out pure black.

Thus I get this

A tip for "dark" areas.

If you are going to set a whole area to pure black. Put a Clip Mask on your lineart layer and color in the lines with a different color. It will allows you yo keep detail there.

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

So the way I've been doing it is the fast way?

I was hoping there was some quicker trick out there somewhere.

[NickRowler]

I know you might not want to hear this but if you are new to the program and not 100% certain what you are doing, there is no "quick way" to do it. I recommend playing around with the different options/menus/tools in Photoshop just to see what they do. That is how I learned how to use the program.

[NickRowler]

Another tip for filling in large areas (especially for those which have line art with gaps in them)

On a separate layer, use the brush tool around the edges of the area

Fill in the center with the paint bucket
Then go back with the brush and fill in the white line

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

So far I've been doing flat-coloring like this. I use the snap-polygon to select first. The next step would be to lock transparency and color over every little detail.

I'm just wondering if I'm making myself do more work than necessary or something.

[NickRowler]

Personally, if you wanted a lot of detail, I would separate the colors into multiple layers

Front: Dark green trees
Middle: House and the ground
Back: blue trees
BG: blue sky (I always put the sky on its own layer)

This will help isolate the areas and make them easier to work on.

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

They are all on different layers.

[dojo]

To be honest, I think the coloring would go quicker if you were doing all the flats on the same layer. There's really no reason to have more than the one layer for your flats because if you've done 'em right you can just use the wand tool to select an area on the flats layer, then go to whatever layer you're doing your shading and refining on and work without having to worry about making a mess. And again, if you've done your flats well, if you change your mind about a particular color you've used, you can just use the paintbucket to change it in a split second. The more layers you're using, the slower coloring is going to go, because you end up wasting a lot of time having to scroll through 'em and find what you're looking for.

Basically your flats should wind up looking something like this (except with some divide between the flats that are on different panels. Also disclaimer, I only did the flats in this image for a class in college. This is not my drawing, it's from Jack of Fables):

I don't remember how long this took me because it was so long ago but I can't imagine it was more than 20min to an hour. (it's also not unusual for flats to look pretty absurd. These colors were not what I used on the finished page and were ONLY what I used for the flats. This really isn't the best example in the world but I do hope it helps.)

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

Another weird thing I discovered recently is that using a squarer brush helps me get into tighter spaces. Does anyone else do this?

[dojo]

I used to exclusively use triangular/rectangle brushes because yeah, you can get a much sharper, cleaner edge than using a round one. The one I use now is a very oval shape, though, but it's designed in such a way that I still get the edge I want.

[sketchbooksage]

One way is to put a layer over your line work and name it "color" then set that layer to multiply.

Then you start blocking in colors, first you would block the whole panel in one color and then you can start blocking in colors for your characters, background and whatever else is in your panel using the lasso or brush tool.

You can also make a shadow layer using this method where you lay the shadows for panels.

[Spinester]

Have you tried using the bpelt plugin for flatting?

[Down_the_Rabbithole]

Never heard of this, but I'm gonna try it out. It looks pretty cool from the video.