Rectangular Balloons with Rounded Corners.

Shishio · Post by **Shishio** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 1:11 pm

How do you make them in Photoshop?

I'm thinking of the balloons used in Questionable Content.

I know how to letter, I just don't know how to make the rounded corners.

Biev · Post by **Biev** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:21 pm

I'd make them in illustrator, it would be a lot easier.

Shishio · Post by **Shishio** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:37 pm

Well, although Illustrator is very similar to Photoshop, I find Photoshop easier to use.

Biev · Post by **Biev** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:45 pm

In this case, it would be easier in illustrator because it has a rectangle-with-rounded-corners tool. You don't really need to mess with anything. You can adjust how round you want the corners to be, but the default corners are gonna do just fine. I'm positive that's what they use in the comic you linked to. All you need to do is drag it to the size you need. You could do your art in photoshop and then just add the text in illustrator when it's done. It will definitely save you time. If you were to do the same thing in photoshop, you would have to make a rectangle, then a small circle selection in each corner, invert it, and erase the pointy part with a brush. It won't come out looking as nice, especially once you add a stroke effect, and you would need to redo this with every different size bubble.

Boogiebop · Post by **Boogiebop** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:51 pm

Make your speech bubbles layer. Go into blending modes, stroke, change the mode to multiply, the width to whatever (i generally use 2px) and the colour to black (or whatever colour you want the outside line to be) then use the rounded rectangle tool under shapes, be sure to have white selected (or whatever colour you want the inside of the balloon to be) then add your bubbles. (it helps to do your text first). Then when that's done use either the polygon lasso tool or the normal lasso tool to draw the pointy bits that come away from the speech bubble (if you're doing them all at once, hold shift when you've done the first one) then fill them all with white. Violah. Rounded rectangle speech bubbles.

If you're having problems seeing black text on your comic background when you're trying to make the bubbles make a new layer beneath the text and use the fill tool at 50% opacity, it'll show up a treat.

There you go. Fire away with any questions.

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:19 pm

Biev wrote:In this case, it would be easier in illustrator because it has a rectangle-with-rounded-corners tool.

So does Photoshop. It's where the line tool is - just click and hold the button to get it to pop up as an option. I use it for narration bubbles.

- Joel Fagin

Biev · Post by **Biev** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:27 pm

Well shut my lips. Here it is. And I thought this thing had no more secrets for me.

Shishio · Post by **Shishio** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:42 pm

Thank you for your assistance, everyone. I found the tool I wanted, but when I use it, every outline I make automatically fills with the foreground colour. Is there a way to prevent this?

Edit: Also, to anyone who uses this tool, I'm curious to know what radius you use.

Flathead · Post by **Flathead** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 5:13 pm

I don't use the tool, but I'd guess you should just make the forground color white (or whatever you want the color of the bubble to be) and then stroke it to make the border.

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 5:31 pm

Shishio wrote:Edit: Also, to anyone who uses this tool, I'm curious to know what radius you use.

30 pixels in 300dpi resolution.

- Joel Fagin

Shishio · Post by **Shishio** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 5:51 pm

I can make the shape I want now, but now I'm having trouble with balloon tails.

What I usually do is use the Elliptical Marquee, then the Polygonal Lasso to make the tail. I fill the balloon with the appropriate colour, then select the layer for the tail, go to Select > Modify > Expand and fill with the appropriate colour. But that method does not work the shape tool.

Also, how do you make everything look smooth? I know the shapes are vector images, so they're OK, but everything I make with the Marquee and lasso tools always ends up really jagged looking. And according to what I've been told, you're supposed to have anti-alias off on those tools for some reason, so I don't know what to do.

Thank you for your help so far.

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 6:13 pm

How about I just step you thorugh how I'd do it? Working in 300dpi all the way...

1. Click on the polygonal lasso tool and turn anti-aliasing back on. Beats me why someone told you to turn that off.

2. Select rounded rectangle tool.

3. Make sure the "Fill pixels" button is selected on the top bar (third from the left). This will turn the box into a raster shape rather than a vector. I work in rasters, me.

4. Draw the rounded rectangle.

5. Select polygonal lasso tool and draw your tail thingie.

6. Select a brush and colour in the tail the same colour as the box. You must use a brush since the anti-aliasing will stop the fill from working properly in this situation. (Hm... Maybe that was why...)

7. Give the layer with your new speech bubble on a black inside stroke (inside makes the pointy bit nice and sharp).

I don't personally use rounded rectangle speech bubbles. It's lisghtly easier with round since you can use the marquee to create the bubble and then also the pointy bit, and then fill the both at once with the fill bucket instead of using the brush as I describe above.

- Joel Fagin

RemusShepherd · Post by **RemusShepherd** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 5:47 am

There's another way. Just select a rectangle (using the rectangle selection tool), and then in the menu go to Select->Modify->Smooth. That will smooth the corners of the selection any amount you want, rounding them off. Then you can fill with whatever color you like.

Aside from the straight line, I generally avoid the polygonal tools. I prefer to work with selections and layer masks.

Shishio · Post by **Shishio** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 9:40 pm

Thanks again everyone.

As for anti-aliasing, here is what my collabarator told me:

Now,I guess I forgot to tell you:don't worry if your images look jagged or 'bitten' while working with the anti-alias off.As you may have already noticed,pixels are squared and because of that they can't form smooth curves.So,what computers do,is add some pixels to lines and shapes in softer colors,so there's an optical ilusion of curved shapes.This is good for computer and TV screens,but it's hell in printing,because all those additional pixels make lines look fuzzy or blurry when printed on paper.
This is the reason why most people prefer vector software for lettering,since in vector you can resize and edit colors and shapes without antialias ‹on the other hand,vector programs like Illustrator can't be used for scanning or coloring lineart,because they don't have any antialias function.
Don't worry if shapes look jagged while working at 300 dpi.When they're printed in the future,they'll look fine,and anyways,when you resize the pics to a smaller resolution,they should look fine because Photoshop antialiases automatically images when changing their sizes (depending of some versions of Photoshop,maybe you'll first need to set the antialias on,but anyway,just remember:antialias off is good for images meant for printing,and antialias on is good for images meant to be seen only on screens).

I know it's stupid for a new comic to worry about print, but if I someday print the comic, I don't want to have to reletter every strip. So I try to do it right the first time. (Though I have been failing completely so far.)