Hello, 

I have already posted this on the Comics forum, but seeing the delayed response, I thought I would try my luck here.

I am using Poser to develop a long sci-fi comics sequence, but I admit I am very new to this, and ideally would want to publish the work online to have people read it. However, I am a bit daunted by what software I should use, and where to publish. I have downloaded Comic Book Creater 1.2, but then the hosting site seems to have changed...I really don't know which software to get, and then where to post the comic once it is finished. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Comic Life from Plasq.com is pretty good.  Not very expensive either.  I THINK they have a trial download version also.

Hmm, I actually try the trial version but was puzzled by a significant degradation of picture quality. I don't know if this was something I was overlooking. It seemed with Comic Book Creator the images stayed at pretty much the same resolution, even if they were reduced in size, to an acceptable degree. But then it seems the host site is no longer there. In your experience with Comic Life, is there a way to control the resolution of the images you are uploading to the pages?

You could use Gimp (freeware) or Photoshop to make your page templates and dialog boxes, word balloons, etc. Thats what I use for my comics. ComicLife is okay.

Comic Book creator is okay for webcomics and so on, but as far as print comics, CBC doesnt output pages in the right size for printing or DPI.

I had CBC, but the support is crap frankly especially as they've changed to something else as you say. On recommendations here I tried the plasq free trail, I'm very impressed by it and will be buying it shortly. I haven't seen the image degredation you have though.

One question I've been meaning to ask about these comic creation things...

Do they offer any advantage over Photoshop?  Maybe I'm missing the point but it seems that Photoshop can do anything they can do and more besides.

Sam, I have CS5 and yes you can add speech bubbles and other effects in Photoshop, but page layout is a bind in CS5 in my opinion, the comic book software have pre made page templates that make it so much easier than drawing the lines in photoshop.

Maybe I'm just lazy, but for less than £20 for the deluxe version, I'm gonna stay lazy..

Attached Link: http://www.plasq.com

Love esther

Both Photoshop and comic life are good programs.

While in photoshop you can create custom word balloon, sound effects and dialog boxes, you have to make the "page" templates by making the panels and adding a 1-2 pixel stroke.

Comic Life, you just drag what you want and choose from a library of premade comic page templates.

You can go either way.

Comic life has a few quirks, but it is the best solution I've seen.  The ability to establish templates, drag and drop and especially the movable, sizable balloons make this vastly preferable to using any 2d editing software to create comics.  Spend the few extra bucks for the upgraded version - you get a lot more pre-designed formats and fonts.

If you use it, pay attention to the dpi you intend to output and the pixel size of your images - this is where people get disappointed with the results, essentially creating images with low resolution and then expecting comic life to resize them in an acceptable fashion.

Klebnor

Well put, Klebnor. Both are great programs nonetheless (PS/CL).

Thanks for all your input. Perhaps the picture degradation was due to the fact the Comic Life was an older version--1.3.6. It is also a trial version. I am opting for one of the comic book template programs since I don't have the budget for Photoshop at this point... I had tried Comic Book Creator, which I felt was better than Comic Life, esp for picture degradation, but like I said, the support doesn't seem to be there, and I am not sure what the best format is to upload strips to, and to what sites. Here I show you the difference between the original PNG and its rendition in Comic Life...which was a half page image in CL.

And here is the original:

Comic life defaults to an A4 size sheet, if you rendered at less than that and opted for fit to page, that was prolly your problem. If you want to post your comic on line and you've done an image at 1024x768 size, then you would need to use that size template in comic life.

Rendering at that size, then increasing it to the default CL size will result in massive image degredation.

I seriously doubt clarity had anything to do with version.  If you do the math (i.e. 10 in x 8 in @ 150 dpi = 1500 x 1200 pixels) you will get crystal clear results in Comic Life.  The problem is people who render at 640 x 480 and then try to output at 150 dpi (and wonder why the image is crap).

Klebnor

Anyway, you  would recommend I go to render dimensions and set the width and height to 1500 x 1200? And resolution at 150? Thanks. I am very new to this.

It's easy.

When you start comic life go to File/Page format. You have loads of options there. If you rendered an image at 1024x768 like I said before, then tick custom size in comic life and put in 1024x768.

Then drag and drop your image in and I guarantee you won't have degredation.

If you want to use A4 size in comic life, then your rendered image needs to be that size or pretty close to it also.

Well, I will try it. I was just going to back to my Comic Book Maker, and seeing that on a standard US 8x10, the uploaded renders are as sharp as crystal. I am puzzled. When I printed a page they retained their sharpness. Do any of you have experience with this program?

I have used CBC and CL.

I'm finding CL easier to use and more efficient than CBC was.

You need to tell us what dimensions your rendered image is in order for anyone to try and assist you.

I admit I had rendering at the standard default Poser 7 resolution, which was around 500 x 600 @ 72 dpi, which seems very low! I'll tinker with it and see if I get better results in CL. If any of you have any insights about the difference with Comic Book Maker, and why the results are so different, I'm all ears. Thanks again!

I don't have CBC on my machine now, but I'd hazard a guess that it's default template is a lot smaller than A4.

I recall that a std rendered image in CBC had to usually be reduced in size to fit the template, so I'm guessing that it's set up for web publication rather than print, hence the difference.

Just a guess mind, seeing as I dumped it after the crap support from the makers.

No, change that, not crap support, zero support.

For the template I used, it was in their "custom" section, and it was in standard US 8x10 format, so who knows whether there is some other issue at play, such as web publication. I actually would consider doing this before printing. I actually do like CBC but the lack of support concerns me. Since I have already done I don't know how many chapters of my strip in the lower resolution (like 500 renders), would you have any recommendations on how to make do with what I have to get something halfway decent-looking in CL? When I was disappointed in the image degradation in CL I switched to CBC, only to find myself with a ton of low res renders, a good story line, and unsure of what direction to head in. Thanks all you experienced people out there, and The Fixer in particular for his kind advice. :-)

I guess you first need to know what your target is. Is it a web based comic or one for print?

Then see what images you have and at what size and resolution to see if they match your target area.

Once you have those bits of information, making the right decision will be easier.

Also, if you have a number of lower res renders already done, consider using a 3 or 4 per page layout - thereby reducing the render size needed for sharp output.

Klebnor

Yes, I hope you will be patient with me on all this. I thank you in any case for bearing with me. I tried a number of experiments. Basically, most of my renders are 849 x 637 pixels at 96dpi, which makes an image of 8.8 x 6.6 inches, or 22 x 16 cms. When I print such an image on paper, the resolution is very good for a half page, horizontally-oriented image. Now, when I go to CL, I decided to do a page in 4 square format. I thought the smaller box size would help with resolution, as Klebnor recommends. It is strange, because when I initially place the image, the resolution is very good, but then about 3 seconds later, the image becomes very pixilated. I tried playing around with the zoom feature, and the same thing happens over and over. At first the image has the sharpness of the original, and then it gets fuzzy.

I am having a hard time understanding that if you are leaving an image in its original size, such as 8x 6 inches, or even reducing it by a third or so, that you need a higher resolution original image. I would think you would need to increase the resolution of the renders if you intended to blow the images up, not reduce them. If the final image in the comic strip is only 3 x 4 inches (without blowing up or reducing the poser render image, just clipping), an original render of 8 x 6 inches would seem to work perfectly well, I would think, but I am new to this and it seems I am not seeing the light. Thanks for all your help and patience!

my vote would be to render at pixel dimensions such that, in photoshop, a 300dpi image would be the correct size in inches or centimeters.  e.g. if it's a 4X5 inch printed panel, that would be a 1200X1500 render in poser, regardless of what poser sez the dpi is (e.g. 72, 96, 150 et al.).

there is a sort of preview mode in comic life.  Have you tried printing?

The little boxes along the top in CL are just previews so you can scroll faster.

go to preferences  in CL and see what the images are being filtered at.

Love esther

Well, I am getting very suspicious. I got fed up experimenting with my Poser renders, and decided to see what would happen when I used some other images that I have that I know are very high res, like 3000 x 2000 pixels at 300 dpi--you can't beat that. Guess what, even they turn out fuzzy in Comic Life! So, there is something else going on...something having to do with how images are visualized in the program. If any of you know or have had any experience with this, I would love to solve this riddle!

THANKS all you have been very kind!

I have had difficulty finding "preferences", there is "options", but didn't seem to be what you were referring to. I did find a filter option under Image Attributes on the bar on the right, for making your image "drawn", "pastel", "painted", b/w", etc. Mine was switched to "none". Is this the filter option you were referring to? I don't think this option really controls pixilation. Must be somewhere else. I'll keep looking. :-)

The original was 1365 x 1024.  The comic version is exported at 96 dpi.

Text bubble added to demonstrate it's comic life, nothing else done.

Klebnor

the preferences are in the to pleft hand corner of the very top of your screen which says comic life.

I'm sure this is the problem.  Mine print out absolutely fine and look fine on screen too.

I have the PC version, so when I click on the logo and/or Comic Life words I just get options for minimizing or maximizing the window. Perhaps the pay version has this option--this is only the trial version. 

you don't have this option?

You get Prefs when you click the logo? It might be a trial version issue...or do you have to go to File, Edit, etc?

the word comic life magiq -  top left

I think you have a different program. Maqic is an upgraded version of the basic that I have....well, I decided to purchase the basic and will tinker with the images to see if there is still a resolution issue. 

:-)

I'm running thr demo version at the mo', that option isn't there estherau..

pacanne - I sure hope it works for you. It works extremely well for me and I'm having tons of fun with it.

Magiq has got one disadvantage compared with CL2.  CL2 can crop speech balloons to the edges of panels.

Love esther

I am using the full paid windows version, and don't have a preferences tab or button.  When you to to file / export->to images you get a dialog which allow you to select the dpi resolution and quality.  higher dpi = higher resolution of image and requires higher resolution images for clarity.  There is also a "quality" slider, which I have always assumed invokes a compression utility, so I always slide it out to "high".

The adjustments in CL are context sensitive in that if you double click an image in one of the panels of your workspace, the style selector changes to image styles (these are the adjustments you mentioned before to alter an image with various art effects).  When you have the focus on a balloon, the style selections are for balloons, and so on.

Hope this helps.

Klebnor

but the preference thingy I showed in my screencap actually helps make the preview mode more clear I think. I can't believe you don't have it.  Maybe it is in a drop down on the right hand side?

love esther

Esther:

I have a view->options which contains a checkbox for "wysiwig image filtering", but honestly I don't see any difference whether it's checked or not.  My images are always clean and crisp anyway.

Klebnor

One thing - it looks to me like this is a mac application which was ported over to windows at some point.  Comic Life 2 isn't even available for windows (yet?).  I wonder if they didn't bother to convert code for some of the bells and whistles?

Klebnor

I don't know.  I hope you are wrong as I know a lot of PC users would find this very useful.

Love esther

Well, I decided to get CL for Windows (paid), and when I printed out a few pages, the resolution was actually good. I don't know if there was some strange issue with the trial version, or something else I was doing. I basically started my strip from scratch, with the collection of renders from before. So far so good. I don't expect any miracles with the resolution of my renders, but at least for future ones I know what to do. Thanks for all your help! 

Do you recommend any good web spots for posting comics?

You could maybe google idie comics and online comics and see where people post.

I haven't posted mine yet as I want to get enough of a lead so if I can't make it for awhile I can still post pages.  when i do post it will probably be on my own website.

What is your comic about and can you post some examples.  we're all curious now!

Love esther