Photoshop [or some equivalent] and YOU

Beginning a comic strip, web or print based, is a daunting task for anyone. When I began my artistic experiment known as Wax Tadpoles Anonymous, I had little experience with graphic design. However, I knew how to draw - which counted for something.

Since that faithful summer of 2001, I developed various tricks and methods to make a scanned line drawing appear the way my art does now.

Funny thing is, after looking at Gabe's how to Tutorial at Penny-Arcade and Ian's at Machall I noticed something. The methods I developed through trial and error were similar, if not exactly the same as these masterful artists procedures!

Since I'm a poor student, I couldn't afford to purchase Adobe Photoshop.
However, I grew to be well versed with Photoshop's retarded cousin.
Meet Adobe Photodeluxe.
No, not Photoshop Lite - that's a different beast. Adobe Photodeluxe shipped with the computer I use, an Apple Power Macintosh 6500/250.
Don't worry if you don't have a Mac. I worked at a computer store throughout high school, and you can do everything with a PC that you can with a Mac. It's whatever your most comfortable using, or have the best software setup for.

In whatever program you want to use to create a comic, it needs to have these basic functions:

Layers
What Adobe Photodeluxe's saving grace is that it has the ability to use Layers. Layers are the digital artists best friend. Think of them as transparent panes of glass you can put on top of your digital canvas. You can paint on one, and see through the areas you don't paint on. This also allows an artist to alter how much you see through each Layer in opacity. 50% opacity will allow only fifty percent of the images from layers below to show through.

A Line tool
Sure, some high end artists like Gabe of Penny-Arcade fame use digital pens (called Graphite tablets) but they're not necessary. The Line tool allows you to trace art scanned into your computer. Most programs can vary the thickness of the line, which allows for a better picture. The line tool also *must* be anti-alised.

Anti-Aliasing
This is a fancy graphic way of describing how your drawing program smoothes the look of the pixels you delete or draw in. Un anti-aliased lines or pixels look jagged and very lame, unless your going for a very retro look.

Selection tools of non-standard shapes
Even MS Paint has a selection tool, but it's like pulling teeth to work with. A good drawing program like Photoshop will give you options of using the usual rectangle, but also:

The Lasoo - allowing for you to draw a custom sized selection.
The Polygon tool - allowing for a custom drawn selection, but draws the selection based between the points you click. It's like setting digital fence posts to tell the computer what you want rounded up inside the selection.
The Oval tool - lets you make ovals of any oval shape. This tool is great for fabricating curved angles.
The Circle / Square tools - allow for selections of perfect circles to be made.

Selections are all well and good, but the ability to Select the ŅInverse" of what you want is necessary too. To select a shape, and select it's inverse shape allows is a real time saver.

A Fill tool
Once you have a selection, you can fill that area with a specific color, or blend of colours depending on you need.

Paint brush and Eraser tool
Sure most programs have this or a pencil tool, but it's necessary to have a Paint tool that has a variety of brush sizes and types. To have solid brushes is great, but having brush types that have fuzzy edges allows for nice soft colour blends.

Smudge Tools
Think back to a time when you would smudge pencil drawings in high school to make them look all shaded and get and A+. Now you can do the same digitally. However, try not to go overboard using it. Any sharp eyed Photoshop user on the net will frown over an overly smudgy piece of art.

Filters
Primarily affiliated with Photoshop use, Filters effect the way pixels appear on any selected Layers, or specific selections. (You want to draw basic colours in some ones hair and have it look good? Draw the selection around just the hair color layer and use a Blur filter!) Blur, Sharpen, Light/Dark balance, as well as many special effect filters are available in Photoshop and other programs.

A quick note on DPI and resolution of digital images:
This took me ages to realize, so I'd like to save the uninformed the trouble I went through. DPI refers to Dots-Per-Inch. The higher the number of Dots per inch, the smaller the the dots are, and the cleaner your image will look.

72 DPI is the usual resolution of images on the internet, which is fine if your not trying to design any work that you want to print off in the future.
150 DPI is a half way point. I've created comics in this resolution, and it's neither great or totally hideous.
Most graphic designers and high end comic artists won't work at anything less than 300 DPI and above. Try to have your monitor it's self set to something higher than 640x480. Other wise, if you design at 300 DPI the image will be HUGE on your screen. I'm not kidding.

I once made an image on a ninja at 300 DPI and it was enormous at 640x480 on my monitor. I forgot to check the ACTUAL SIZE of my digital canvas. My reward for being forgetful was to have an ninja that, when printed, was three inches tall.

Now that the basic tool information is out of the way, get ready for jargon loaded tutorial time, - with pictures![Next]

Posted by B.Scott
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