Auto coloring
Color storyboard line art with AI and export layered PSDs — in the canvas or in the studio, one panel or a whole batch either way.
Plotr turns a script into webtoon and film storyboards, and auto-coloring is the one part you can use entirely on its own. AI colors black-and-white line art, and the color goes on a layer beneath the original lines, leaving them untouched — export as PSD and you get lines and color as two separate layers (digital underpainting). There are two ways in, and what separates them is not how many pages you have but where the art lives: line art already in the project you are working on gets colored right in the canvas, while files from outside come into the Auto-Coloring Studio. Both handle one page or many.
Color in the canvas — one panel or many
If you are in the middle of a storyboard, you do not need the studio at all. Select a line-art layer in the canvas and ‘Auto color’ appears in the tool list on the right-hand properties panel (right-clicking the image opens it too). The color lands on a new layer below the line art, which stays on top in Multiply. Select two or more line-art layers and it becomes ‘Auto color (N)’, and whatever you set once applies to all of them. At the top of the panel, ‘Describe it in writing’ takes a line like “only color the people, make the hanbok indigo” and follows it exactly — often that one line is all you need, with no sheets and no marking. Starting from a colored drawing instead? Use ‘Trace as-is’ right next to it to pull the line art first.
When a panel has more than one character — marking
Drop character sheets into the A–F slots under ‘Character reference images’ (your project characters and asset-library images appear on the row below, and you can drag an image from the canvas straight onto a slot). With two or more sheets loaded, the button turns into a marking step: you tag who is A and who is B directly on the artwork before it colors. With no sheets at all, turn on the same-person marking option to tag people the same way, and the colors from the first page carry over to the rest. If you selected several layers, you tag them all in one pass.
Worth noting: With only one character you do not need marking at all — load a single sheet, or none, and color straight away.
One merged image, or separate layers
Under the details you choose what comes back: one merged image, where you set ‘Shading level’ separately just underneath (flat colors, 1-tone, 2-tone, or shading + highlights), or the color split into separate layers — base color only, base + shading, or base + shading + highlights — which you can hide, fade or export to PSD individually. The defaults are fine if you just want to press the button.
Worth noting: Cost follows how many passes it draws: a merged image or base color only is 1 credit, base + shading 2 credits, base + shading + highlights 3 credits. Selecting several layers multiplies it by the number of layers. A panel more than twice as tall as it is wide cannot be split into layers — use the merged image for those. Auto-coloring needs a paid plan (or a credit pack purchase); free accounts get one lifetime try at no cost.
Line art files from outside go to the studio
To color line art files that live outside the project, open ‘Auto Color’ from the sidebar. The Smart Auto Coloring Studio opens. Add line art via ‘Upload from my PC’, the clipboard (Ctrl+V), or ‘Import from Library’. Upload several at once and they are colored as one batch. Transparent-background PNGs give cleaner results. What sets the studio apart is not the page count — it is that you bring files in and take layered PSDs back out in bulk.
Match character colors in the studio (optional)
To keep a character’s colors consistent across several images, use the ‘Marking Pen’ to tag the same character with the same letter (A·B·C…). Link a ‘Character reference image’ and it is colored to match that reference. It is the same mechanism as marking in the canvas.
Set style & quality, then color
Pick a style under ‘Art style settings’ (applied identically to all images) and optionally add color notes in the prompt (e.g. blonde hair, blue school uniform). Press ‘Start auto coloring all’ to run it, and use the progress view to check done/failed and retry any that failed.
Worth noting: Standard coloring is 1 credit per image, ‘Pro quality’ at least 2 credits per image, and ‘Split into 3 layers’ (base color, shading and highlights delivered separately) 3 credits per image on paid plans only. In a batch it multiplies by the number of images.
Export as PSD
Export a finished image with ‘Download PNG’ as a flat image, or ‘Download PSD layers’ for a file that keeps the line + color layers. The original lines remain, so it is easy to keep working in Photoshop or Clip Studio. For many images at once, use ‘Bulk PSD download’. If you colored in the canvas instead, select the layers and use ‘Export as PSD’ for the same structure — and that one is free.
What's next?
Stuck somewhere in the app? Ask Pong at the bottom-right — it walks you through it based on your current screen.