Drawing Manga - Toning an Image

Okay, first things first! Find an image!

When you tone, it's easiest to work with a nice crisp black and white image. Once you've got something, open it up in Photoshop, duplicate the background layer and rename it 'ink' or 'line,' set it to 'Multiply' and delete the old one. Now we're ready to begin.



Now, you need to translate the image's colors into toners. Darker things will have 'thicker' tones or straight black, lighter things will have 'thinner' tones or be straight white.
This is a clip from an older drawing of the lead lady from my own comic. She has light hair and pale skin and wears black leather and a dark trenchcoat. Her eyes are very dark in the center and light around the edges. All in all, she's pretty straight-forward to tone.


We'll start with the leather. I create a new layer, place it under the inks, select and flood-fill the area with Black2.



Now, this image was inked for color. Had I inked it for toners, most of the leather would already be blacked in. So I make another layer under the leather and add a simple black-white gradient. This darkens things nicely while retaining the 'tonal' look.



On the same layer the gradient is on, under the tones, I airbrush in some highlights and clean up the image.

Then I start the skin on a new layer.



I like the size of these dots, but they're too dark, so I lock the transparency and paint over them with a lighter color. Much better.
I also 'tone' the eyes. I like to let them stand out a bit, so I just airbrush them.



She really comes to life with her eyes painted.

Create another new layer and start on the hair. Again, the Black4 dots are the right size. but too dark, so I lighten them and clean up the rest of the image. Now all we need is a background.



Create a new layer, and move it to the very bottom. Since Quartzy here is mostly white, I'm going to make the background dark to balance things out.



And there we have it. Once you get the hang of it, it's not difficult at all. Just play around and experiment; you can create pretty much any effect you want.

The object of using toners is generally to enhance the linework, not necessarily to make the viewer wonder what the image would have looked like in color. Experiment and figure out how toners best balance with your own style. :3

Remember not to resize your toners!


On to the next Tut - [DM- Toning a Page@wiki]

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