Hello
Ive tried to make my own comic, but every time I draw something in photoshop\corel painter the lines look hedious: too thin lines particaly cant be seen, normal lines look edgy with big pixels. I suppose something with my resolution makes it look so, can anyone tell me whats wrong?

DefaultNick
Hello
Ive tried to make my own comic, but every time I draw something in photoshop\corel painter the lines look hedious: too thin lines particaly cant be seen, normal lines look edgy with big pixels. I suppose something with my resolution makes it look so, can anyone tell me whats wrong?

Could be your resolution or it could be the brush you are using even. I had the problem years ago and learned to keep my art at about 300+ dpi and use a soft edged brush. The pentool has been great for making smooth lines I've found. What tools are you using?

Kat

Using a soft edge did helped abit, now it looks bearable. But what is that 300dpi thing?(sorry I really havent got a clue about digital technologies)

DefaultNick
Using a soft edge did helped abit, now it looks bearable. But what is that 300dpi thing?(sorry I really havent got a clue about digital technologies)

When creating a blank page or scanning in a new page you will find they ask for the DPI of the image. It is how much dots there are per inch and make the image crisper and cleaner. For the most part I work at 300 DPI and then change it to 100 when posting online. I also tend to scan at 300 to 600 to get a better resolution of my sketches.

In the program you are using try to change the image size and you should see several options, the physical dimensions, inches or cm depending on where you are from, the pixel width and then the DPI. I've used photoshop for the past few years and have a couple of tutorials on scanning, image size and digital inking with pentool if you are interested.

Kat

Thanks for help! tooo the photoshooop!

DefaultNick
Thanks for help! tooo the photoshooop!

Here, I created these while working as an art director of a manga anthology.
My Guide to Scanning
How I do pentool inking.

Both work for photoshop 6 and up. I hope they come in handy for you. Good luck

If you want more of my tuts check my Tutorial page on DA There might be something there to help you.

Kat

Speaking of DPI is rather confusing. DPI itself doesn't matter until you try to print something out, since screen measures the picture in pixels anyway - 700px in dpi 96 and 700px in dpi 300 look exactly the same on your computer.

I think what Shinigami_Shimai wanted to point out is that you shouldn't work on your destination size, but rather on a size circa 4 times bigger that what you aim for, so you can shrink it down before publishing.
Simply sketch your comic page, change the image size to 400%, work on it, and when you're finished save a copy, flatten and shrink to 25%. If you use resampling method to do that (default in most programs including PhotoShop) the edges between colors will be smoothened.

Friedenmann
Speaking of DPI is rather confusing. DPI itself doesn't matter until you try to print something out, since screen measures the picture in pixels anyway - 700px in dpi 96 and 700px in dpi 300 look exactly the same on your computer.

I think what Shinigami_Shimai wanted to point out is that you shouldn't work on your destination size, but rather on a size circa 4 times bigger that what you aim for, so you can shrink it down before publishing.
Simply sketch your comic page, change the image size to 400%, work on it, and when you're finished save a copy, flatten and shrink to 25%. If you use resampling method to do that (default in most programs including PhotoShop) the edges between colors will be smoothened.

I keep forgetting to mention the physical size when talking about DPI. I only got into the whole web comic thing a few years back and tend to think in printing aspects. Opps. I explain things more clearly in my tutorials.... I hope.

But basically that is what I mean. Work on a larger scale then reduce things later.

btw, you can just call me Kat. It is easier then my long nick. LOL

Kat

Here's an example of what both posters are referring to. When scanning my 8 1/2 by 11 inch page of artwork I bring it up in my graphics package at a whopping 3000 by 4500 to 5000 pixels count and 300 DPI resolution and touch up the inking and create dialog balloons and add my text at that size. Then I save everything BEFORE I flatten my work and resize and save it in a jpeg format.

You save in your native format BEFORE flattening and resizing and converting to the jpeg format so that if you ever need to rework an early page in the raw, it is available.

For my purposes I shrink my finished work proportionately so that the width is 775 pixels across and the resolution is 90. Then I save this NEW work in the jpeg format. Thus I have a very large work in my native GIMP format and a 'ready for display' smaller work in the jpeg format.

Obviously each of us has a finished page at slightly different sizes and resolutions but the nearly universal rule of cartooning with a graphics package software is to scan it in LARGE and work on it LARGE and then save it and then shrink it down for display purposes and then save it in the jpeg format. This is because most of the flaws detectable at large size vanish to the eye after the page is shrunk down for display. Your lines WILL smooth out using this principle.


Wait a minute. I just re-read your original post DefaultNick

Someone
Ive tried to make my own comic, but every time I draw something in photoshop\corel painter the lines look hedious: too thin lines particaly cant be seen, normal lines look edgy with big pixels. I suppose something with my resolution makes it look so, can anyone tell me whats wrong?

The answer IS related to what we have all been discussing. You need to use thicker ink lines than seem reasonable to you -- particularly if you ARE going to work large and then shrink everything down afterwards.

Here's a tip. Copy a page of a piece of cartooning work that you really like. Bring it up inside your graphics package and then enlarge it so that it dominates your monitor screen. NOW compare the lines of this artwork to the thickness of the lines that you have been using. Almost inevitably the work that you admired will have used relatively thick lines in comparison to what you have been using.

As for the lines with ragged edges, again, working large and then shrinking everything down afterwards WILL eliminate that problem.