Give old style or Retro effect to comic

1. Now we are going to increase the overall contrast of the picture by burning it a bit. Go to IMAGE ► ADJUSTMENTS ► LEVELS…With this image we are going to set the INPUT LEVELS to 60 / 1.00 / 220. But this is only for this example. Choose the best settings for each photo.

 2. In this step we are going to give the photo an illustrated look with some graininess to give the illusion of an old and bad quality paper. It is not a realistic effect, it is just some distortion to the image to help us achieve the final look. Go to FILTERS ► ARTISTIC ► FILM GRAIN. In this case we are going to use: GRAIN: 4, HIGHLIGHT AREA: 0, INTENSITY: 10. Try different settings for different photos.

 duplicate the layer and name the new layer HALFTONE

3. In this step we are going apply a halftone pattern to the image to give the final old comic book printing effect. Go to FILTER ► PIXELATE ► COLOR HALFTONE. Set MAX RADIUS: 4 and leave the rest with the default values. Press OK and then go to the LAYERS PALETTE and set the BLENDING MODE to DARKEN.
 

5.Adding comic book elements to the picture

The effect looks nice so far. It is not a realistic old comic book effect, it simple resembles that look. To make it more real, now comes the fun part. We are going to add some unique elements that are very popular on comic books and strips
Select the HALFTONE layer and set a STROKE LAYER STYLE of WIDTH: 20px, POSITION: Inside and COLOR: #F5ECE1.

6.Add a new layer and draw a small rectangle at the top left of the frame of the image. Give it a STROKE of 3 pixels and paint it orange. An orange to yellow gradient looks better. Draw another rectangle, a bit larger this time, on the lower left corner of the frame. Give it a STROKE of 3 pixels and paint it white. The final result should be like the one below:

 7. Lets add a border to the image: Add a new empty layer above the layer containing the rectangles we created in the previous step. Select the RECTANGLE SELECTION TOOL from the TOOLS PALETTE. Draw a selection from the top left (right inside the frame) to the bottom right border of the image.

8. Go to EDIT > STROKE, set WIDTH: 4px, COLOR: BLACK, LOCATION CENTER and press OK.
DESELECT the current selection and go to FILTER > BLUR > BLUR MORE. Then apply a small distortion using FILTER > DISTORT > RIPPLE… (Amount 20%, Size Medium). Now, lets sharpen the stroke a bit with FILTER > SHARPEN MORE and there you have a nice simulated hand drawn border.

9.Adding captions using a comic book font

To add captions to the photo you can use any font you like, but only using fonts specially designed for comic books you will be able to achieve the desired look. Download the free font Digital Strip and install it. At the end of this article you will find a lot of free and commercial comic book fonts and resources.
Using the Digital Strip font you’ve just downloaded, type a date on the top orange rectangle. Play with the first letter of the text by adding a stroke, a shadow and a bright contrasting color.
Then write a caption for the photo at the bottom white rectangle. Highlighting some words in bold also looks good.
And that’s all. Your image should look similar to the one below:

Click on the image to see a larger and uncompressed version.

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Go through the following links to learn more about creating comics in Adobe Photoshop


Arrangement and collection of theme and pictures for comics.[Part I]
Creating speech bubbles in comics [Part II]
Give retro effect to the comic
Comic book fonts 
Comic sound fx 
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Creating speech bubbles in comics [Part II]

  Click here to go back to the Part I [ Arrangement and collection of theme and pictures for comics]

In this tutorial you will learn to create speech bubbles of different shape

1.Rectangular box for introducing the frame:
    i. After doing step 4. in Part I, Click on Text Tool (Horizontal Type Tool or by pressing T ). Draw the text box in appropriate area. Select font "Comic Sans MS"  and type the required text in capitals only. You can hide the background layer while typing if it is too dark, by clicking on eye left to the background layer.
    ii.Create new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N) or by clicking icon on right bottom corner.
    iii. Single click on created layer (Layer 1) to select the layer. Select Rectangular Marquee Tool  (by pressing M)or selecting icon
    iv. Draw the marquee box over the text and color the box with opaque yellow (#ffff80) or white (#ffffff) color using Brush (by pressing B) or Bucket Tool(G).
    v. Note that Text layer should be above the Layer 1, if not drag the Text layer above layer 1.

    vi. Right click on Layer 1 ► Blending Options
         In Blending options ► Drop shadow
             Distance : 7 px,  Size : 7 px
        Blending options ► Stroke
             Size : 5 px,    Color #000000 (Black)
[Refer Step 3. in Part I]





2.Rectangular speech bubbles:
   i. Repeat step i, ii, iii and iv from above point Rectangular box for introducing the frame.
   ii. After step iv. select Polygon Lasso Tool . If Polygon lasso tool is not seen in tool bar look for Lasso Tool or Magnetic Lasso tool . Hold left click on any of the two lasso tools, a drop down menu of the lasso tools will appear, then select Polygon lasso tool

   iii. Draw a triangle with Polygon lasso tool as shown :

[Note that you must select the proper layer before drawing the triangle

 be very careful while using the layers ]
   iv. Color the selection with white (#ffffff) color.
   v. Right click on current layer ► Blending Options
         In Blending options ► Drop shadow
             Distance : 7 px,  Size : 7 px
        Blending options ► Stroke
             Size : 5 px,    Color #000000 (Black)
[Refer Step 3. in Part I] 

The final Image will look like this:

3. Creating oval shaped speech bubbles :
     i. Repeat step i and ii, from the point Rectangular box for introducing the frame.
     ii Hold left click on Rectangular Marquee Tool and select Elliptical Marquee Tool from drop down menu.
     iii. Draw an ellipse on the text and color the selection with white (#ffffff) color.

     iv.  iii. Draw a triangle with Polygon lasso tool as shown :

[Note that you must select the proper layer before drawing the triangle

 be very careful while using the layers ]

    v. Color the selection with white (#ffffff) color.
    vi. Right click on current layer ► Blending Options
         In Blending options ► Drop shadow
             Distance : 7 px,  Size : 7 px
        Blending options ► Stroke
             Size : 5 px,    Color #000000 (Black)
[Refer Step 3. in Part I] 


4. Creating Speech Cloud :
    Take 30px brush then 60px and then 90px and draw the following pattern:


 

      complete the cloud and
      Right click on current layer ► Blending Options
         In Blending options ► Drop shadow
             Distance : 7 px,  Size : 7 px
        Blending options ► Stroke
             Size : 5 px,    Color #000000 (Black)
[Refer Step 3. in Part I] 




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Go through the following links to learn more about creating comics in Adobe Photoshop


Arrangement and collection of theme and pictures for comics.[Part I]
Creating speech bubbles in comics [Part II]
Give retro effect to the comic
Comic book fonts 
Comic sound fx 
__________________________________________________________________
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Arrangement and collection of theme and pictures for comics

Easy Photoshop tutorials for Basic and inexperienced  users.

1. Think for a theme on which comic has to be created. Then collect pictures related to the them.



2. Open photoshop and arrange the images in suitable way. Note that there should be spaces left between the images. (Note that fourth image is edited before pasting .)

 

3. Drawing border to images:

    i. Right click on Layer 1 ► Blending Options
    ii. In Blending options ► Drop shadow
             Distance : 7 px,  Size : 7 px
        Blending options ► Stroke
             Size : 5 px,    Color #000000 (Black)

If you are not advance user use default workspace

  Window (Alt + W) ► Workspace ► Default workspace] 

          

        Repeat step 3 for all the four layers 

        [or right click Layer 1 ►Copy Layer Style

          right click Layer 2 ► Paste Layer Style

          repeat same for layer 3 and layer 4 ]

 

 4. Right click on topmost layer (Layer 4) ►Merge Visible


The completed image will look like this :

By this way you have completed the tutorial of Arrangement and collection.
Click here to learn Creating speech bubbles [Part II]
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                              Other helpful tutorials :
Trick to increase windows experience index
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__________________________________________________________________
Go through the following links to learn more about creating comics in Adobe Photoshop


Arrangement and collection of theme and pictures for comics.[Part I]
Creating speech bubbles in comics [Part II]
Give retro effect to the comic
Comic book fonts 
Comic sound fx 
__________________________________________________________________
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