David Shepstone
Animation Tools

Drawing Cleaner

Turns photos or scans of pencil drawings into clean lines on a transparent background, ready to load into OpenToonz or any animation or compositing program.

Drawing Cleaner turns photos or scans of pencil drawings into clean lines on a transparent background, ready to load into OpenToonz or any animation or compositing program.

What it does

Pick a folder of PNG or JPG drawings, check the live preview, and clean the whole shot in one click. Cleaned drawings are saved in a new folder beside yours with _clean added to its name. Original drawings are never changed, and file names and picture sizes stay the same so frame numbers and registration carry over.

Batch cleanup
Choose a folder and every drawing inside it, including subfolders, is cleaned in one pass.
Live preview
Scrub through drawings and hold Space to compare against the original.
Two simple controls
Paper cleanup removes haze and smudges; Line darkness strengthens faint lines.
No install
Unzip and double-click DrawingCleaner.exe. A command-line mode is also available for batch jobs.

How to use

  1. Download DrawingCleaner-Windows.zip, right-click it and choose Extract All…
  2. Open the extracted folder and double-click DrawingCleaner.exe.
  3. Click Choose folder… and pick the folder holding your drawings.
  4. Adjust Paper cleanup and Line darkness while checking the preview.
  5. Click the blue button to save the cleaned drawings to the _clean folder.
  6. In OpenToonz, use Level > Load Level… and pick the sequence from the _clean folder.

The first time you run it, Windows may show a blue "Windows protected your PC" box because the app is new and unsigned. Click More info, then Run anyway.

Tips for better results

  • Light the paper evenly and avoid casting your own shadow across it.
  • Keep the camera in the same place for every drawing in a shot.
  • Fill the picture with the paper — table edges and pegs are treated as part of the drawing.
  • Everything darker than the paper is kept, including timing charts and margin notes, so erase or crop those first.
  • Haze left on the paper: raise Paper cleanup. Faint lines lost: lower it and raise Line darkness.

Release Notes — 1.0.0 

Turns photos or scans of pencil drawings into clean lines on a transparent background, ready to load into OpenToonz.

## Download and run

1. Download **DrawingCleaner-Windows.zip** below.
2. Right-click the zip and choose **Extract All...**
3. Open the extracted folder and double-click **DrawingCleaner.exe**. There is nothing to install.

The first time you run it, Windows may show a blue "Windows protected your PC" box because the app is new. Click **More info**, then **Run anyway**.

## How to use it

1. **Choose your drawings.** Pick the folder that holds your PNG or JPG drawings.
2. **Adjust if needed.** Raise *Paper cleanup* if grey haze is left behind. Raise *Line darkness* if your lines look too faint. Hold Space to compare with the original.
3. **Clean them.** Click the blue button.

The cleaned drawings are saved in a new folder beside yours with `_clean` added to its name. Your originals are never changed, and file names stay the same so your frame numbers carry over.

To load them into OpenToonz, use *Level > Load Level...* and pick the sequence from the `_clean` folder.

Windows 10 or 11.

**Full Changelog**: https://github.com/dshepstone/drawing-cleaner/commits/v1.0.0
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