2 Replies Latest reply: Nov 3, 2010 1:37 PM by John Nez RSS

    Is there a smart paintbucket fill tool in CS5?

    John Nez Community Member
    John Nez Oct 23, 2010 5:36 PM

      I'm an illustrator and happily have just upgraded from CS1 to CS5.

       

      All the new tools are fabulous... but I'm wondering if there's any new tool in photoshop that will fill in an area of a scanned drawing that is defined with broken lines?

       

      All of my drawings have broken lines in them.  I know the fill tool is okay at filling in areas completely defined with unbroken lines.  But what about a tool that will fill areas that are defined by broken lines?

       

      I was playing around in Illustrator and notice there's a live paint tool that sort of does that... but it seems a bit complicated to have to define paths first.

       

      I remember way back in the late 90's there was an Australian drawing software program (can't recall the name), but it did just what I'm talking about.  You could scan in a drawing with lots of broken line areas and the fill tool would make smart guesses and fill color into areas of broken lines.  It wasn't perfect, but it would sure save  a lot of time if there was a CS tool that could do that.

       

      I know the most painstaking part of making an image is slowly going through to define the color areas by hand.  If there was a smart paintbucket tool, that'd really make my day.

       

      Thanks for any clues....

       

      jn

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        • 1. Re: Is there a smart paintbucket fill tool in CS5?
          John Nez Community Member
          John Nez Oct 25, 2010 10:46 AM (in response to John Nez)

          I guess we can assume that Adobe has not invented a 'smart fill' paintbucket tool... since I don't see any responses.

           

          I sort of figured out a way to accomplish a smart fill.  It's by adding an additional layer with a texture that fills the canvas, and then setting the selection to around 15 or so.

           

          Then the bucket fill will indeed confine the painted area to border the scanned ink lines.  But it's very sloppy and inexact.

           

          I am astonished that this tool has not been invented... since I'd assume there are thousands of graphic applications where the painted area needs to be established by the tedious old fashioned method of redrawing what has already been drawn.

           

          Anyhow... any ideas or suggestions welcome.  I was trying to convert the scanned photoshop file into Illustrator and then try to establish a map of the main pattern areas.  Then it'd be easy to click and color the shapes... hopefully saving hours of time that otherwise I have to do by scratch.

           

          But I'll keep working on it...

           

          jn

          • 2. Re: Is there a smart paintbucket fill tool in CS5?
            John Nez Community Member
            John Nez Nov 3, 2010 1:37 PM (in response to John Nez)

            The answer is the smart fill wand tool!

             

            Works like a charm.