I'm finding that with the compression factor, for web, my balloons when they're hand drawn don't look so good when they're compressed. So, I'm wondering if maybe blambot might have some I could borrow. I know they have text but do they also offer the baloon templates? Just curious.

They used to. Free ones.

yep, they still do:
http://www.blambot.com/balloons.shtml

But what system are you using for creating your pages? It might be just as easy to create your own bubbles on the computer.

Well, personally, I would reccommend making your own... That way, when you want the bubble to be a certain way, or out of the way of something else, you can make it so. If you want to do that, you can go to my thread: Photoshop Tips for the Modern Man. I tell how to do it there.

In photoshop: Layer style stroke, color = black, thickness = your taste.

A layer with this style: just make oval selections and fill them with white. they will outline perfectly. Create carrots to speakers by making triangles with the polyganol lasso tool - fill with white.

I use the same technique (thicker line) for panel borders.

If you compressed images are chewed up - remember antialiasing, do not make a bitmap of your black and white images - use grayscale! And your panels and baloons will look smooth. If your current scheme chews up rounded lines with stepping - it will do the same thing with blambot baloons too.

Make your own baloons. It's much harder to use stock baloons because the amount of text and shape of text is variable - but stock baloons are not.

I think I will continue to make my own. And I'm working with paint shop pro, so things should turn out okay, now, I suppose what I could do is just thicken the lines on the baloons. Or try to use png instead of jpeg for the final compression. Png comes out a lot better.

sandy
I think I will continue to make my own. And I'm working with paint shop pro, so things should turn out okay, now, I suppose what I could do is just thicken the lines on the baloons. Or try to use png instead of jpeg for the final compression. Png comes out a lot better.

Jpeg is the way to go for small file size and full 'photographic' color. But the compression is destructive. I hate that digital cameras use jpeg compression 'cause it destroys image integrity,

Png is a tad larger than gif, if you're using 8bit png - you're limited to 256 colors, just like gif too. But png is FAR better at preserving detail integrity, I'd use it on my full color Sodomight pages even tho the pages clock in around 150 to 200k.

PNG 24 is very large for a web format BUT - IT IS LOSSLESS COMPRESSION - THE SAME QUALITY AS YOUR MASTER DOCUMENT! (with real alpha channel transparancy!).

mykill

sandy
I think I will continue to make my own. And I'm working with paint shop pro, so things should turn out okay, now, I suppose what I could do is just thicken the lines on the baloons. Or try to use png instead of jpeg for the final compression. Png comes out a lot better.

Jpeg is the way to go for small file size and full 'photographic' color. But the compression is destructive. I hate that digital cameras use jpeg compression 'cause it destroys image integrity,

Png is a tad larger than gif, if you're using 8bit png - you're limited to 256 colors, just like gif too. But png is FAR better at preserving detail integrity, I'd use it on my full color Sodomight pages even tho the pages clock in around 150 to 200k.

PNG 24 is very large for a web format BUT - IT IS LOSSLESS COMPRESSION - THE SAME QUALITY AS YOUR MASTER DOCUMENT! (with real alpha channel transparancy!).

Yeah, I love PNG format. Now only if I can shrink a png to a specific size for DD. I like using those rather than JPEG. And does DD take PNG files? Just curious.

PNG, JPG and GIF ... and swf, too, I think.

Ronson
PNG, JPG and GIF ... and swf, too, I think.

Coolness! From now on I'm using PNG.