Production: Print Output
- Printing Resolution
- Web Graphics
- Empty Balloons?
- Outlined Fonts Fattening Up
- Sticky-Back Paper
- Avoiding the Jaggies
Printing Resolution
Paul writes,
"When the final art is approved and sent to press, what line screen
do they print at? Also, this is determined by the line screen, but
what is the general resolution the photoshop files are saved at?
Lastly, if I have photoshop files saved at 150 dpi, if that resolution
is too small, what would be the best way to get them up to spec?
Should I double the image size?"
Well, the line screen depends on what type of paper it's going to
be printed on, but I'd say the general range is between 100-150.
Talk to your printer to find out for sure. Regardless of the screen,
black and white line art looks cleanest when it's output at 400dpi or
higher -- on high-gloss paper 600dpi is even better, and on coarse
paper you can probably get away with 300dpi.
If you enlarge the image size, it's just going to interpolate between
the pixels, which can leave bumpy gray areas around your line art.
Do you still have the original art scanned any higher than 150dpi?
If so, I would resize your files up 200% (or to 300dpi), and then
paste the original scan back into the K (black) channel. If not, I
would resize it up, making sure your Photoshop preference is set
to "bicubic", and then use the Unsharp Mask filter on the black (K)
channel to clean up the edges.
If you're trying to save memory while coloring, you can do what
I've heard many professional colorists do: Scan the art actual size
(10x15 or so) at 300dpi. Save that file, then reduce a copy down
50% so the computer will go faster while coloring. When you're
finished, enlarge it back up to 300dpi, and paste the original line
art back into the K channel. Then when the file is imported into
QuarkXPress and reduced down to 67% for the printed size,
the resolution will effectively climb to around 450dpi, for super-
clean printed results!
You'll find more details on this process here, and many more useful
tips on coloring, at the
Comic Colors website.
Web Graphics Tips
Dave writes:
"Are there any secrets to getting good looking output on a
web page using comic fonts? You guys have a really awesome
looking site."
Thanks! I create most of our graphics in black & white in
Illustrator, and then import them into Photoshop by hitting
Option-Copy in Illustrator, and (without closing the Illustrator
document), opening a new Photoshop File (72 dpi, RGB mode),
and Pasting. I then use the Unsharp Mask filter (which works
great on just about everything) at low settings (like 50/.5/0) to add sharpness.
After coloring, I convert them to Indexed color mode using the Netscape safe color
palette (I color within that palette to begin with, but usually
have to go back in and touch up parts to get rid of unsightly
dithering) and save them as GIF with BoxTop Software's excellent PhotoGIF plug in.
Douglas writes:
"On your Comicraft.com page, you have bursts and
word balloons that have a gradated enlarged
halftone dropshadow. How was that created?
Do you use a special software program for that
or did you create that effect in Photoshop?"
Nope, just a bit of fun with the bitmap conversion settings.
I create the dropshadow in grayscale mode by Feathering the Selection
and filling it 50% black, and then convert the file to Bitmap mode,
selecting "halftone screen" as the Method. You can then set the
"frequency" really low, like 10 or 15, with the shape as "round".
There's quite a few other options in that window -- play around
and you'll find lots of neat effects.
Empty Balloons?
Tim writes:
"I recently finished a comic of mine and am trying to letter it on the
computer for the first time, but am having problems with artwork showing
through the word balloons. I have a PC and have scanned in my pages as JPEG's. I then placed the page into Corel (I don't have Illustrator). Then I imported a word balloon from
your Zap Pack and placed it over the artwork. On screen, everything looked fine, so I entered the text and printed the page. Once printed out, the
balloons were completely transparent. Why do they look opaque on screen and in the print preview?"
You're printing to an InkJet printer, right? Our balloon files are filled white in
Illustrator, so there's no logical reason this should happen, but I have similar
problems with my HPDeskWriter, so I know that non-Postscript printers can
handle white areas poorly. Try printing to a laser printer (at a self-service
computer center like Kinkos if you don't know anyone who has one), and see if
it corrects itself. If so, you can be sure it will output correctly to an
imagesetter as well. Another option is to get a Postscript upgrade for your
printer, or there's a neat program called StyleScript that simulates Postscript on most inkjet printers, and will improve the overall quality of all your printouts. Something else that works most of the time for me is, when you're in the Print dialog box, click "Options...", and set "Color Matching" to "Text/Graphics".
Outlined Fonts Fattening Up
Mark writes:
"I've found that when you convert fonts to outline objects via 'create outlines', the fonts tend to fatten up a little
(by about 1/3 of a pt. While this isn't a problem with Sound
FX, when it comes to dialogue and balloon text at small
sizes (6.5-12 pt size), it has a major effect: almost changing
the font from a Regular to a Bold version. Is there way to
convert the dialogue fonts so they don't fatten up?"
When lettering is output to an imagesetter as an Illustrator
EPS file placed in Quark (as most four color comics are done),
we've found no visible difference between the fonts and outlines.
But you're right -- when you import into Photoshop at low resolutions, or print to many desktop printers, you will notice a difference in the weight of the font. One way to compensate is to give the outlined text a very thin white stroke (.2 or less -- strangely, even a 0 point stroke will make a visible difference) before printing from Illustrator or importing into Photoshop.
Sticky-Back Paper
Joe writes:
"I will be lettering a comic book soon using a font, but I will be printing out the balloons, cutting them, and pasting them onto existing inked artwork. Is there anything I need to know before I do this? More specifically, if the pages are scanned in to be colored with the lettering already pasted on, will that affect the quality of the final product in any way? I live in Los Angeles, and am searching for the right kind of printer paper to use. Any suggestions? John Byrne suggested I seek out something called Crack-N-Peel. Any idea where to get this (or something similar) in the L.A. area?"
First off, yes, the crispness, and possibly the readability, of your lettering will suffer if it is printed out, pasted down, scanned, and output again. If the artwork is going to be scanned and computer color-separated anyways, I would really recommend doing the pasteup in QuarkXPress or Pagemaker (click here for details).
If you're hell-bent on pasting up, Kelly Paper in Santa Monica is a great source for Crack-N-Peel in small or large quantities. However, the stuff we use is "Laser Mechanical Paper" from Paper Direct (1-800-APAPERS). It's a bit more expensive, but more durable and easier to remove and re-stick. IMPORTANT TIP: To prevent any kind of sticky-back paper from separating from its backing inside your laser printer (a big, expensive mess), put scotch tape over the edge of the paper that's heading into the printer.
Avoiding the Jaggies
Blair writes:
"I have a font that I wish to try computer lettering with. The font prints out fine in programs like Claris Works and Microsoft Works and Word, but when I try to print it out in black & white in Photoshop, it comes out looking like it was "printed on a computer" and not like the smooth look that Claris gives me. Not having much money, I want to try to avoid buying an expensive program like Illustrator. Any ideas on what's the matter?"
With PostScript fonts, there's two files: the screen/bitmap font (inside the suitcase) and the printer/outline font (usually with a cryptic name like "CCDutCouDar"). The bitmap font is what you see when you're typing stuff on screen, and then programs like Claris and Word will translate that to the outline font when you print, giving it that clean, crisp look.
Photoshop, however, converts whatever you type into pixels, so what you see on screen is exactly what will print. ATM (Adobe Type Manager) is a program that can help by using the outline font to describe what you get on screen. To get decent looking lettering (and clean artwork lines) in Photoshop, make your file size at least 300 dpi, and preferably 400 dpi.
However, lettering in Photoshop can be a HUGE pain, because once the lettering becomes pixels, you can't go back and edit your text very easily. If you're going to letter entire comic books, I'd really recommend getting Illustrator or Freehand, or at the very least a page layout program like QuarkXPress or Pagemaker.
Related Pages:
Share your thoughts about this page in the Balloon Tales Forum!
The contents of this website are copyright (c)
Active Images. All rights reserved.
