Digital Coloring Tip: Changing Your Ink Color the Easy Way

This is the first in a (hopefully) series of quick tips to help you navigate digital coloring and inking. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to change the color of your inks, like shown below, read on…

My workflow is such that I ink using only black. After my inks are in place, I then go back and change the colors of my inks as needed. The secret to this effect is in the layers palette, specifically in a setting called Lock Transparent Pixels. It resembles a small square checker box towards the top of the Layers palette.

When Lock Transparent Pixels is selected, you’ll see a small lock symbol on the currently active layer.

Select a color and paint anywhere on the layer. Your color will be restricted to the visible items on the layer. Lock Transparent Pixels allows you to add a variety of ink colors to your composition in a quick and efficient manner.

If you found this tip useful, please let me know. And if you have suggestions or ideas on other tuts and quick tips, drop me a line.

-Krishna