How do I make smooth hand drawn lines?

[meola86]

Hi all,

I would like some advice on the best way to smooth out my work.

My work is generally calligraphy, it is all drawn by hand but would like the option to smooth it out on photoshop if possible? Can anyone help with this?

I have attached a copy of the artwork(untouched) to give you an idea.

Thanks

[chrisix]

Well, if you have a tablet, you need to select a brush, press f5 and in the options, make the brush go bigger if you increase the pressure of you tablet pen.
If you don't have a tablet, you make a path with your pent tool(p) and then right click>stroke path and check simulate pressure.

[meola86]

Hi Chris,

I did as you said, when I click simulate pressure what else do I select? I tried brush and a copy of the pen line I made appeared - which was not smooth and x20 bigger than it should have been.

[ALB68]

There may be a good way to do this but I don't think there is a one or two click fix.Why don't you consider drawing these with the computer in the beginning. You may find that the quality and control you get, might make the savings in time worth the effort to learn the process. I'm not sure PS is the right software either, I think I would consider something vector based, such as Illustrator or Corel Draw. Good luck!

[meola86]

Sounds interesting, do you mean to trace the lettering?

[ALB68]

Well, you could do that but you would still spend a lot of time manipulating the curves if you autotrace. I use Corel Draw for vectors and there is an option for smoothing in the trace module. Now, you could draw them by hand, scan them in and then trace them by hand. That would be easy, not very time efficient, but you would have a lot of control over your output. Lots of people do that.

[meola86]

Ok I think I can trace the curves with the pen tool, but as you can see from the original artwork how do I manipulate the line to be thicker in certain areas?

[Hoogle]

if you own illustrator they have a spiral tool which is very good for this kind of work and plenty of tutorials out there for doing so, It has always been a tool that I am surprised that it has not been imported into photoshop. Google vines tutorial and that should be a good starting point just manipulate it more to your lettering.

that said if you want the quick and dirty version you can trace it in illustrator giving you paths and vector version

[ibclare]

If you continue to do this work in Photoshop and you trust your hand (or in Illustrator for that matter) a tablet would be a wise and wonderful investment for you, as chrisix suggested. You can always combine vector line creations with your handwritten calligraphic letters.

[meola86]

Hi Claire,

Are you suggesting I use a tablet for the calligraphy as opposed to pen and paper?
Or use the tablet to assist me in tweaking it to my liking?