Over the last few years, I've fallen completely in love with working on toned paper; specifically the Strathmore Toned Tan has become my primary sketchbook of choice. This presented a problem when it came time to throw some digital color on those drawings, though. After some tooling around with a couple of different approaches in Photoshop, I came up with an initial solution. I liked the results enough to keep messing with it, and over the past year of taking commissions in this style and continuing to improve upon it, I've got it broken down to a process well enough to share with you.

A lot of the techniques used in this process are at least in the moderate skill range for Photoshop knowledge, but I’ve tried to present them in digestible ways, and to always link to break-downs of how each tool functions. So even if you’re not familiar with all of them, I hope that through this process you’ll get to learn how they work, and perhaps learn enough to utilize them elsewhere in the future.

You could probably take this approach with drawings done on non-toned paper as well (or even digital work), but I've not personally tried it, as this was developed to use the strengths of the toned paper rather than fighting against it. But feel free to borrow what works for you and leave the rest!

A word of advice out of the gate, though: By the time I arrive at this digital coloring stage, 80% of the work is already done. This technique works best with a drawing that feels finished on it’s own terms. If your initial drawing is unfinished or uninformed, no amount of digital sparkle will turn it into a better drawing! That said, let’s get going on that digital sparkle. ✨

Drawing Prep

If you haven't already, you'll want to clean up your scan as you normally would, cleaning up any obvious dust, increasing the contrast and tweaking Levels as need be. I like to use Adjustment Layers for those edits, as later in the process it might make sense to adjust this slightly.