Creating Cells in Photoshop

[Accomplice]

If I have my finished art ready to pop into cells, how do I layout the page with the various blocks in photoshop and then bring in and place the art, word bubbles and dialog?

[Dash Martin]

You mean Layers?

[Inkthinker]

Yeah, I'm not sure what you mean by "cells". Could you clarify the terminology?

[covie]

I think, from reading that, he's trying to ask how collage seperate pics into a page of comic art and letter it in photoshop...

My suggestion is to not use photoshop for the letterig, use illustrator. As far putting the images together, you should figure that one out yourself so that you know the way that best works for you...

[Accomplice]

Thanks for the info. What I mean is how do I create a finished (ready for the printer) page of my comic book using the various images/ art? I need to create the black space between the cells and pop the completed images into place. Those images will be individual photoshop files which have been manipulated and colored in PS CS.

[Inkthinker]

By "cells" you mean "panels", perhaps?

I guess you'd set up a new document in Photoshop equivalent to the size of your finished page, probably at about 400 dpi. Copy and paste in your panel images, then use the various tools as you like to create the borders, where necessary. Since each panel should be on a separate Layer as you paste them in, you'll have no diffculty moving them around until you're satisfied with their positions, then you can craete your panel borders. An easy way to do that would be to use the geometric lasso (that's the one that draws straight lines from point-to-point) to create selections around your panels, and then stroke the inside of the selection with black at about maybe 5-10px wide. After you've gotten all the panels in place and the borders drawn, then if you want to fill the space in between with black it's as easy as filling the background.

[Accomplice]

Thank you! I was wondering if I needed to treat each pic as a layer. That sounds pretty easy to do. If I'm using a full color glossy professional printer, would it benefit me to have a higher resolution on the pics?

[Inkthinker]

Regardless of whether you print it yourself or professionally, a higher resolution should result in a cleaner, better-looking print.

I'd advise you not to waste glossy stock on interior pages. It really doesn't impress anyone, and it's very expensive. Use glossy stock for the cover, and just a good white stock for the pages.

Keep in mind that for actual bound printing, there's a complex format that involves figuring out how the pages sit in relation to each other on the printed page, which is different from how they read after being bound. Additionally, if you plan to print and bind this yourself, you'll need to print on paper equal to the size of two pages across, and on both sides.

Take a really crappy comic that you won't miss and remove the staples, then lay the individual pages out. See how page 1 and page 24 are actually printed on the same sheet? Tricky...

There's a layout convention to figure out how this works, but right now I'm not going to go on about it... I'll see if I can find a link to the last time we discussed this, though.

[Miss V]

Originally posted by Inkthinker
Keep in mind that for actual bound printing, there's a complex format that involves figuring out how the pages sit in relation to each other on the printed page, which is different from how they read after being bound. Additionally, if you plan to print and bind this yourself, you'll need to print on paper equal to the size of two pages across, and on both sides.

Take a really crappy comic that you won't miss and remove the staples, then lay the individual pages out. See how page 1 and page 24 are actually printed on the same sheet? Tricky...

There's a layout convention to figure out how this works, but right now I'm not going to go on about it... I'll see if I can find a link to the last time we discussed this, though.

That's really only necessary if you're printing your comics at Kinkos. We set up our books in proper page order at my job, and then the printer rearranges the pages for the actual films.

[Inkthinker]

Yeah, but I think he's suggesting that he's going to print it himself, I think. In which case, he'll have to do his own page layouts.