Quick Tutorial
Creating a comic page in Comic Life is very simple — the user interface is laid out in just the way you need:
- Choose a template
- Choose your images and drop each one on to a panel
- Add Balloons and Captions to the panels
- Add sound effects and a title
- You're done!
Choosing a template
A template is a particular layout of panels on a page. The templates
are smart in that the layout is automatically adjusted to suit the
dimensions of your page.
Whenever a blank page is created the template area is automatically
expanded to reveal the available templates. You can use the popup menu
to view the different template collections.
When you've found a template you like, drag it on to the page (or
simply double click it). The template will adjust to fill the available
space on the page (within the margins).
The template area is automatically collapsed.
Adding images
You'll see your My Pictures folder displayed below
the template area — you can also choose to browse your computer's contents via Explorer. Explorer provides a browsable folder system similar to navigating around your Windows PC.
Choose the album or folder that contains the photos you wish to use.
Note: the mini-Explorer in Comic Life is smart in that
it will automatically create and show thumbnails for any image files it
finds in the current folder making it easy to identify the images you
need. Large folders may take a few moments to fully display all the
available images depending on the speed of your PC.
Click and drag an image from the album or folder and release the
mouse button when your cursor is within the panel where you want the photo to go. There is a momentary pause as Comic Life adds the image and fits
it to the panel such that it completely fills the panel. You can adjust
the position of the image by clicking and dragging on the visible part
of the image. You can resize it by dragging the green resize handles
that surround the image.
Note: When an image is dropped on a panel the image
becomes attached to the background of a panel. When the panel is moved
the image moves with it. To adjust the image placement within a panel you need to double click on the panel to select the contained images. If you want to add another image to a panel, rather than replace it, hold down 'Alt' while dragging and dropping your additional image.
Continue adding images until all the panels are filled.
Adding Balloons
Once your images are laid out in panels it's time to add some Balloons.
Drag a Balloon from any of the Balloon wells at the bottom of the
window and drop it onto a panel.
A Balloon is created on the panel and ready to be edited. Enter
whatever you want and then either click outside the text area or hit
the "enter" key on your keyboard to save the new text.
Notice that the Balloon has resized itself to fit the new text — if
there is more text than before. You can easily resize the Balloon
further to better fit the new text by dragging the green resize handles
around the Balloon. As your mouse moves over the Balloon you'll notice
two markers appearing and disappearing. The blue marker on the tip of
the tail highlights the spot to drag to adjust the position of the tail
— so you can line it up with the person who is speaking. The green four-sided arrow
marker that's near the center of the Balloon is a special handle that
lets you move the Balloon and the tail at the same time. To adjust the
position of the Balloon click and drag the 'body' of the Balloon.
Notice that the tail (the part of the Balloon that indicates who is
speaking) does not move. You can move the tail by clicking on the tip
of the tail and dragging it to a new position.
While you are dragging the Balloon or tail you've
probably noticed that they are drawn beyond the edges of the panel on
which the Balloon was created. Many comics normally have these balloons 'clipped' so they fit within the panel. Occasionally these comics 'unclip' the balloons so they hang over the edge, for special effect. However, Comic Life does not clip balloons like this by default, because our everyday photos do not have the visual 'space' to fit balloons, so, Comic Life lets all balloons hang over the edge. However, there are two ways to change this behavior:
You can enable the clipping behavior for a particular element by selecting it then choosing the "Arrange->Clip" menu item.
To enable clipping as the default behavior, check the "Clip new non-image elements to panels" check-box in the Options.
Clipped balloons work best with photos, which have a lot of 'visual space' around the characters — have some fun experimenting with this approach next photo shoot!
Continue placing Balloons and editing until you're happy with the composition. See Balloons for more information on working with Balloons.
Adding Captions
Adding Captions is very similar to adding Balloons — simply drag and drop them on the panels and edit the text. See Captions for more information.
Lettering
The final step is adding 'sound effects' and titles to your
composition. Sound effects and titles are both created with the
Lettering element. To add a Lettering element, simply drag and drop from
the Lettering well onto a panel. A window will now appear where you can enter your text. You can also change the font at this point too.
This window converts your text into special lettering made of lines and curves. This
allows you to use exciting 'comicy' styles like gradient fills and
warped text.
Enter the text for your Lettering element (and choose a new font if desired) then click "Place Lettering".
The element is placed on the comic and drawn with the default style.
You can move your Lettering to wherever it is needed by clicking and
dragging in the normal way. The blue, round, drag handles at the corners
have a different effect than the green square resizing handles found on images, Balloons and Captions.
Instead of resizing the element uniformly, each individual handle distorts your text relative to its position. Notice that the two center handles warp the letters in a
curve. This lets you get dramatic effects with very little effort.
Adjust the handles to get a design you like. If you want to re-scale,
without warping, then click again to get the 'normal' green resizing handles.
Continue adding Lettering elements until you are happy with your composition (less is more!). See Lettering for more information on working with Lettering.
Your page is finished. You can now keep adding pages or if you're done print it out or post it to the web. Have fun!