Digital Comics 101

There are two ways to do text on a comic; write it out by hand, or use digital type. Because my handwriting is sloppy, I usually use digital type. A good place to find free comic fonts is at blambot.

The type tool is in Photoshop's main toolbar; the "T" button. When you click on the T, (in photoshop 6 & 7) the top menubar will have some options pop up. Make sure that your text is set to horizontal and that your anti-aliasing is set to crisp. The menu will also allow you to control if the text is centered, aligned right, aligned left, the font style, and size of the type.

Once you have the type set to the options you want, change your foreground color in Photoshop's main toolbar to black (or whatever color you want the type to be). In your layers menu, make sure you are above all your other layers; color, drawing, and the black boxes. Selecting the type tool again, click on your document and a blinking cursor will appear. Once this appears, start typing your dialogue on your keyboard. Hit enter for a new line. When you are done on one area of type, deselect the type tool by clicking on another tool and then select the type tool again and repeat.

Add text to all of the panels of your document. You can see on the how my layers were set up on the layers menu. Note that the text is on top of everything else.

I'm going to create a new layer on top of the drawing but under the text for the voice bubbles.

We're going to add a layer effect to the voice bubble layer that will automatically add a black line around all of your shapes, keeping the cartoon feel.

In the top menu bar, click on layer and then click on layer effects / stroke. Place a 3-5 pixel black stroke around your boxes. Yeah, the picture shows "outer glow". That was before I got smart. Pretend the picture shows me selecting stroke like a smart artist would.

Once again, look at Photoshop's main toolbar. We're going to use the marque tool. The default tool is usually a rectangle. Click and hold on it and you should get more options. Select the eliptical marque tool. On the bubble layer, draw an oval that is the shape of your text. If you need to move the selection, simply click on the center and drag it. You can do multiple selections at a time by holding "shift" on your keyboard.

Once your bubble is selected, click on the paint bucket and fill it with whatever color paint you want. The paint will flow inside the area of the selection, and your layer effects will automatically add a black border.

If you use the polygonal lasso tool, you can add triangles that lead to the mouths of your character, completeing the bubble so that it's not just a circle.

Once you are finished, you are ready to save your file as a jpg, viewable online. Your file will probably be very large, so you will need to scale it down. Click "Image" in the menu and select "image size". Making sure that constrain proportions is checked, type in new pixel values for how tall or wide your image is. Constrain proportions will make sure that it does not morph. Once the image is scaled down to a viewable size (mine are usually 700 pixels tall) save it as a jpg by clicking "save a copy" in the file menu and selecting jpg as the file type.

Your online comic is now ready to be viewed by the world!

If you do not have your own homepage, I recommend getting a free account with keenspace or drunk duck, two online comic hosting sites.