I realize this is barely about Harvest Moon but...., I need help in "Paint" Options

[DreamerGirl]

So I drew a lineart of Luke, and I wanted to colour it in "Paint". I scanned and started it, but then saved it and logged off my computer. The next day, I tried to continue, but near the lines, were huge amounts of pixels of various off-whit colours that make it impossible to use "bucket". This isn't the first time its happened either.... :(
Any Ideas?

[Darth-Paper-Boy]

Sounds like you're finally seeing what happens when you use JPEGS. Or a result of scanning in the first place. Either way, to side step it, the best advice to get around this for coloring is to upgrade to a better program, like the paint-like (but with extra features) Paint.net that has a function to sort out these kinds of things by grouping similarly colored pixels together (with a slider to adjust for when it doesn't work the way you want it) while coloring/otherwise altering the image.

[Celia]

Saving it as a GIF will also do that. Even if it's a black and white picture itself, telling your printer to scan it to your computer as a black and white under the settings thing should fix it, if it's the scanning process that's causing the unwanted off-whites, etc.

Even editing it through paint just to re-save it as a monochrome bitmap might even be an easy fix and you wouldn't have to rescan it. It just depends if the off colors are more white or more black. It causes the picture to become a solid black and white.

And I wouldn't be worried about topics not being Harvest Moon related, that's what all these other sections and topics are for.

[Jason]

Paint? Hm. I highly suggest you work in this program: Paint.NET

It's just like paint but has layers (and other features), so you can color areas without touching the lines.

It also features antialiasing, which enables you to create crisp clean lines. Example of antialiasing:
(IMG:http://www.digitalbattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/antialias.jpg)
You may be thinking "but I hate those fuzzy edges, they cause me a lot of trouble" -- trust me, you'll appreciate them later.

Quick search of youtube for dealing with lineart in paint.net..should give you an idea of what to expect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqurJSQM6Wc

If you have any more questions, please post them here.

Enjoy! :)

[trinest]

Pretty much if your stuck with paint make sure you save it with a format which isn't a lossy format like JPG. I recomend saving stuff with PNG.

Like people have said in this thread, look for other programs which can save in a priorty format. Such as Photoshop (a paid program), Paint.net (free). etc.

[Calliope]

Like Trinest said, PNG is highly recommended seeing that you're working with lineart. Images saved as that don't alter because the PNG format preserves all the information of the original image, unlike JPEG. And if I were you, I'd avoid using GIF. It is pretty much like PNG, but the file size will turn out to be a lot bigger.

Photoshop, Paint.NET and to add to the other suggestions, Gimp are pretty much the programs you'd need if you're going to work with digital coloring. However, I'd say it'd be best to go for Paint.NET since you're obviously running Windows and are just looking to color lineart. Plus it's free.

Gimp has a tad more features compared to Paint.NET, but it's quite hard to use at first and the interface is not as user-friendly as the latter.

Another suggestion is that perhaps you can learn how to digitally "trace" the lines in your scanned image. The final image would come out smoother and, more or less cleaner looking. There are tons of tutorials that can guide you through it, Paint.NET Lineart Tutorial by ~DemonedAway is an example.

However, that's just one way you can do it. You're your own artist, you can go about it however you want.

[DreamerGirl]

=.= I'm not great at computers, so all of that was a tad confusing ;P
I'll see if I can download paint.net, because another friend told me about it a while back :)
Hopefully, that will make life easier
Thanks everybody!