Recently a friend of mine posted a very “Artist Problems” meme which basically had a haha yeah I know that feeling cartoon of a person diligently finishing lineart on a drawing only to realize they drew all their lineart on the sketch layer. The person said “I hate everything” at the end. We’ve all been there as digital artists. Do you know how to recover?

In this tutorial/infographic, I go over a couple of methods of how to recover your lineart so you can continue your artwork. One involves layer blending modes and the other involves channels. These are both very easy, and once you do them a couple of times you will find yourself using them all the time! You can also use both of these methods to get scanned sketches on their own layer, merged silhouettes, logos, and more onto their own layers, or even if you want to do a sort of double-exposure thing you can do it here too! Try it out and experiment with it… Don’t be afraid of all of Photoshop’s tools.

There’s also the “magic wand tool” method that I wouldn’t suggest using, as it will often lose pixels or look funny, but can still work in a pinch.

What methods do you use? Let me know in the comments below!