[Osmodius]

Ha..wonder why I didn't think of that...Thanks

[Osmodius]

Ok here's the deal...I just started using PS so I'm new to this and a lot of my questions might sound kinda dumb, but hey...gotta learn somehow right? Alright, when I scan an image I sketched i redraw the lines I need on a new layer with the paintbruish because the pencil doesn't make smooth enough lines...I dunno if it's supposed to... Well when I start painting and use the paint bucket it leaves a lot of clear and gray space that I have to fill by hand. Is there any way I can make it so that doesn't happen?

[Socar MYLES]

The easiest way: Make another layer behind the layer with the linework on it, and don't use the paint bucket. Just colour it in with a large paintbrush--it's still very fast, and you won't get the pixels sticking out.

If you don't want a painted look at all--if you just want linework filled in with flat colours, though, why not use Illustrator instead of Photoshop? Then, you can fill in shapes without worrying, because it's vector-based rather than pixel-based.

[BooMSticK]

another very easy way...

...Make another layer. Put your orginal linework on a layer on top of the new one. Now, with the new layer selected you use the magic wand (set to 'use all layers') to select the area you want to fill with color. Then go to >selection>modify>expand and expand your selection with one or 2 pixels or what will do. Now fill with your selected color. This will make the selection wider and will probably (thats the intention, anyway) fill color in the whole area underneath your linework. If you draw with a black line on a white layer you might want to set the blending mode of that layer to multiply...
Hope this mumble-jumble makes just abit of sense...
,Boom

[Ian Jones]

What you need is a more general knowledge of Photoshop. If this is your first time using any graphics program of any sort, then I suggest you visit..

Design By Mark

You need some general tutorials that will help your understanding of how to use the software. So try the ones there, they are quite fun.

Socar MYLES, and BooMSticK are right, you could try it either way.

Oh and just for your information... The pencil tool is not supposed to be 'smooth'. To better understand it, zoom into any image until you can see individual pixels clearly, then grab the pencil tool with a small brush and scribble a line or two.. then grab the paintbrush and choose a small brush and scribble a few lines. What you should notice is that the paintbrush, does a thing called 'Anti-aliasing' basically to compensate for the jagged, square shapes we are restricted to by pixels.. the paintbursh tool adds some semi-transparent pixels next to the darker ones, to try and smooth the appearance of the pixels. Zoom out and you will see the difference it makes.

Hope that helps.