Giving color line drawing a black background in Photoshop

Question

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This is probably an easy question for most of you.

I drew this image with pens and scanned it; I want the background to be black, everything that's not the drawing, you know, like the people are lying on top of outer space or something and it's showing through their hair All the tutorials I have been able to find are just for black and white images.

I am pretty much a Photoshop beginner, using CC 2017, so if you choose to answer this question probably best to write like you're talking to a beginner. Thanks. Seriously, thanks <3

Answer 1

Yes, an answer might be easy but execution will take a lot of time. Due to the fact that this is actually a pen and paper drawing then scanned will not make things easy. More so looking at how complex the drawing is due to the 'hair'.

I would say you could:

1. create a new layer on top of your image;
2. select the brush and manually draw the black background between the hairs.

There's not easy two-step way of doing it since it's a scanned drawing.

You could also get good results by using the:

1. Magic Want Tool while adjusting the Tolerance to make your selections first;
2. Create a new layer;
3. Use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill your selection with black.

ALSO, a combination of the two techniques about would do nice, first use the second technique then, where the magic wand failed, use the brush to paint the background or the eraser to remove where not needed.

I would have created an example of a rough result but your attached preview image is too small to allow me.