How to Digitize a Drawing: The Ultimate Guide

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As we enter the digital age, artists are discovering a new medium on the internet. Just as artists in the past used a pen and a sketchbook to earn a living, now digital artists are in demand using pixels and a screen. Not only does learning to digitize your art make you more marketable, but it also lets you experiment with new techniques expanding your horizons and improving your craft.

The wonderful thing is you can start slowly. You can practice your art in the way you always have and digitize it afterward to make the final touches. Not only does this allow you to learn how computer art can expand your craft, but it also allows you to maintain the consistency you're used to before committing to going purely digital.

This guide will explain how flexible digitizing your drawings can make your art. We will explain what it means to digitize a drawing, how it's done, and how CorelDRAW can give you the skills to make your masterpiece come to life.

What does it mean to digitize a drawing?

When you digitize a drawing, you take your hand-drawn work of art and convert it through digital transformation. Everyone's final piece will be different, just as every drawing is different. It all depends on what you drew and the tools you need to bring your vision to fruition. Digitizing a drawing is a flexible process allowing you to create art on a computer, or if you prefer, creating it in the way you are used to and scanning the finished project into the digital landscape.

You can digitize a work of art for many reasons. You can use it to keep a portfolio of your work in the cloud, or you can manipulate the drawing in ways that would be difficult with pen and paper. Work on paper is fragile, and many artists digitalize their drawings to ensure they have a copy on hand if anything happens to the original.

Whatever your reason for digitizing your art, it will help you create a permanent record of your drawing, make yourself more marketable in the art world by learning new skills, and allow you a manner of creative control you might not have when you are drawing.

How to digitize a drawing

Digitizing your drawing is not difficult to do; however, there are some steps you'll want to take to ensure maximum success.

• Examine your sketch: Ensure your sketch is done in dark lines so you get a clean transfer to digital space. Also, ensure that you are pretty happy with your sketch, as once it's digitized, you will only be able to make small adjustments.
• Scan your picture: The easiest way to scan your drawing into digital space is to use a scanner. Of course, you can also use your smartphone, but whatever method you use, save it with the highest quality and email it to yourself.
• Open the drawing: Several programs will open your drawing, but CorelDRAW's LiveSketch tool is one of the best. Of course, you want to make sure that you create a copy immediately, so if you make a change you don't like, you'll always have a copy of the original!
• Clean up your drawing: Next, you're going to use the program you used to open your drawing to touch up any small errors or smudges that might be on your drawing.
• Vectorize your image: Lastly, if your drawing looks too much like a group of pixels, use your program's vector tool to turn the pixels into geometric shapes.

Conclusion

CorelDRAW's Graphic Suite can give you everything you need to create your art online or digitize your drawings and bring your ideas to life. If you just want to digitize your drawing, CorelDRAW's LiveSketch will give you everything you need to digitalize your dreams.