How to Create Quick and Easy Cartoon Dialog Balloons in Photoshop

When working on my own comics, my freehand style sometimes doesn’t lend itself to the pristine task of lettering character dialogue and creating dialogue balloons. That’s where scanning original artwork into my computer using the image editing software Photoshop comes to my rescue. Since Photoshop is a deep program filled with bells and whistles, there are a lot of tricks that have to be learned. When I first began using Photoshop to edit my comics, I had initial problems with sizing and locating the character dialogue balloons in each comic frame. The trickiest problem was that the balloons that I had created in Photoshop were either too small or too big. When I’d create a too small balloon, it would touch the edges of the dialogue text, making it illegible and thus throwing off the comic’s visual timing. When I’d create a too large dialogue balloon, it would threaten to visually dominate a frame and throw off the comic’s visual balance. I read Photoshop books and searched the Web for tutorials, tips, and tricks to solve this problem. Here’s what I came up with, and it’s fairly easy.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Your Artwork
• Scanner
• Computer
• Photoshop
• Intermediate Knowledge of Photoshop

1. Scan your artwork into your computer via Photoshop’s “Import” command. Save your comics in an image mode that you prefer, preferably a high-resolution mode such as JPEG, PNG, or TIFF.
2. Create two new layers. Press the “Shift”, “Control”, and the letter “N” keys together to quickly create each new layer. Layers are your best protection against making mistakes.
   
   Label each layer. “Layer 1” should be labeled “Balloon.” “Layer 2” should be labeled “Dialogue” (or whatever else you choose for character speech).
3. Select “Dialogue” in Layers Box. Press the letter “T” on your keypad. This activates the Text tool in Photoshop’s vertical toolbar. Place cursor in the location in the comic’s frame where you’d like the character’s dialogue text to begin. Type in your text.
4. Select the “Balloon” layer in Layers Box. Select the Elliptical Marquee tool in Photoshop’s vertical toolbar (unless your dialogue is better suited in a rectangular balloon). Move the cursor to the approximate center of the dialogue. Hold down the ALT key and click-and-drag the ellipse shape until it encircles the dialogue to your personal preference. Note that if you’re having difficulty encircling the dialogue, you can guesstimate the balloon’s shape and move it into position around the dialogue by using the keypad’s arrow keys.
5. Create the balloon’s “stem”. The stem will point the dialogue at a character of your choosing. Press the letter “L” to select the Polygonal Lasso tool in the vertical toolbar. Hold down the “Shift” key and draw a triangle-shaped stem that overlaps the balloon that you created.
6. stroke command box Open the “Stroke” command box by selecting “EDIT” from the horizontal top toolbar, then select “Stroke.” In the command box, choose the pixel size of the balloon’s line width, the line’s color, and the line’s opacity. Click “OK.”
7. Flatten the layers by selecting “Layer” from the top horizontal toolbar, then select “Flatten Image.” Save your work.