Editing Inker (section)

== Workflow ==
{{refimprove section|date=October 2009}}
While inking involves tracing pencil lines in a literal sense, it is an act of creative interpretation rather than rote copying. Inkers fine-tune the composition by adding the proper weight to lines, creating visual contrast through [[shading]], and making other creative choices. A pencil drawing can have many shades of grey depending on the hardness of the [[graphite]] and the pressure applied by the artist, but an ink line generally can be only solid black. Accordingly, the inker has to translate pencil shading into patterns of ink, for example by using closely spaced parallel lines, feathering, or [[Hatching|cross-hatching]]. The result is that the final look of a penciller's art can vary enormously depending on the inker.

An experienced inker paired with a novice penciler might also be responsible for correcting anatomical or other mistakes, modifying facial expressions, or changing or improving the artwork in a variety of other ways. Alternatively, an inker may do the basic layout of the page, give the work to another artist to do more detailed pencil work, and then ink the page themself (as [[Joe Simon]] often did when inking [[Jack Kirby]],<ref name="Simon" /> or when [[Michael T. Gilbert]] collaborated with penciler [[P. Craig Russell]] on the [[Elric of Melniboné#Adaptations|Elric of Melniboné series]]).

The division between penciller and inker described here is most frequently found where the penciller and inker are hired independently of each other by the publisher. Where an artist instead hires their own assistants, the roles are less structured; an artist might, for example, ink all the faces of the characters while leaving the assistant to ink in the backgrounds, or work with the inker in a more collaborative fashion. Among Neal Adams' [[Crusty Bunkers]], one inker may have been responsible for the characters' heads, another doing bodies, and a third embellishing backgrounds.<ref name="netzer">[[Michael Netzer]]. [http://michaelnetzer.com/rEvolution/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=233&Itemid=1 "The Lives and Time of Crusty Bunker," Michael Netzer Online, September 17, 2007]  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120210004639/http://michaelnetzer.com/rEvolution/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=233&Itemid=1 |date=February 10, 2012 }}. Retrieved July 5, 2008.</ref> The inking duo [[Ian Akin|Akin]] & [[Brian Garvey (comics)|Garvey]] had a similar arrangement, with one inking the figures and the other the backgrounds.

=== Digital inking ===
One can [[Traditional animation#Digital ink and paint|ink digitally]] using computers, a practice that has started to become more common as inkers learn to use powerful drawing and editing tools such as [[Adobe Inc.|Adobe]] [[Adobe Illustrator|Illustrator]] and [[Adobe Photoshop|Photoshop]], [[Inkscape]], [[Corel Painter]], and [[Clip Studio Paint|Manga Studio]]. A [[graphics tablet]] is the most common tool used to accurately ink digitally, and use of [[vector graphics|vector-based]] programs precludes [[Dots per inch#DPI or PPI in digital image files|pixelization]] due to changes in resolution. However the process is more time-consuming.

{{As of | 2015}} some companies put scanned pencils on an [[File Transfer Protocol|FTP site]]. The inker downloads them, prints them in blue, inks the pages, scans them in and loads the finished pages back on the FTP site for the company to download. While this procedure saves a company time and shipping costs, it requires artists to spend money on computer equipment.