Lettering: A Guide to Adobe Illustrator

[Jim_Campbell]

the weird stuff starts happening when I try to do anything clever, like prepare the lettering to use in Photoshop.

I don't get it, I'm afraid. How do you mean 'to use in Photoshop' ...? Place the artwork in AI, letter it, save the file as .ai or .eps format (.eps will play nicely with DTP packages and will still be editable) for reference and/or corrections and -- if a bitmap version is needed -- export as a TIFF. This really should be the end of the process, so I'm not grasping what additional stages are needed in Photoshop?

Cheers!

Jim

[HdE]

Ha! That's actually my point, really!

I'm very well aware that I'm faffing about with my comics pages FAR more than is necessary. I'm still trying to squeeze the last of my perfectionist tendencies out of the picture.

The last few projects I've done, where any work has been required in Illustrator, have generally seen the lettered page go back into Photoshop for a few last minute tweaks.

A good example is a project I'm currently lettering for somebody else. Another artist has come on board to take care of the colouring. I'm being asked to supply speech bubbles (but oddly, no lettering - not a good idea as far as I can see!) and then forward the black and white line art to the colourist.

So basically, I'm flattening a file with both line art and speech bubbles before sending it to be worked on. I already suspect this is a far from ideal way of working. Certainly, it's not how I would choose to do things.

Thanks for the responses to all of this, Jim. I'm going to try to read up on this and iron out the gubbins I don't understand.

[Jim_Campbell]

A good example is a project I'm currently lettering for somebody else. Another artist has come on board to take care of the colouring. I'm being asked to supply speech bubbles (but oddly, no lettering - not a good idea as far as I can see!) and then forward the black and white line art to the colourist.

Why not letter it at the same time? I believe that Dark Horse has their lettering put onto the line art. The letterer then exports a TIFF from Illustrator with the lettering included, and the colourist works on that file.

Cheers

Jim

[HdE]

I know, I know... it's a community project thing - not how I'd choose to do it at all. But I ask no questions...

[Dog Deever]

In the version I've got, you can actually export it as a photosop .PSD if you need to.

[HdE]

Oddly enough, I just tried all this out earlier today! Thanks to some of the great tips in this thread, I made short work of my assignment!

I noticed that I can export stuff out as a PSD too - but unfortunately, when I try to layer my speech bubbles into a Photoshop file like this, some strange distortion effect occurs. Easy solution to this was to do things the other way around - I ported the Photoshop file into Illustrator and flattened the image there before saving it as a 300 dpi TIFF file. For the needs of this project, that's just fine and dandy.

For some reason, if I try to export my bubbles as a TIFF file, I can't do this without taking the background with me. That's a pain, as if I could do everything with TIFFs, life would be super-peachy-easy.

Gotta say, though, after reviewing this thread, I managed to do all the required jobs pretty damned quickly. I'm definitely getting there, thanks to your advice.

[Tiptonman]

Jim,

Thanking you for the tutorial. I use PCs, but envy how stylish the Mac interface looks (only wish they were cheaper!)

Having encountered both Illustrator CS3 and CS4* repeatedly crashing on me while lettering my comic book, I shifted the files to Serif DrawPlus X3 (a simple but effective alternative vector art program) and so far it's remained stable. The lettering outputs nicely in both PS or Indd (not tried Quark)

*Not for want of computing power - my PCs were custom-built specifically for graphic design.

[Jim_Campbell]

Just a quick update with an easier way to make Double Outline Balloons!

Draw an ellipse, or select your balloon with the Selection tool, hit CMD-C to copy and then use Edit -> Paste in Back:



This will position the copy directly behind the original without all that faffing about described previously. The copy will be the selected item when you perform this operation so now, still using the Selection tool, all you need to do is ALT-SHIFT-drag to make the back balloon bigger but in proportion:



Add a coloured fill of your choice, and draw a tail:



Pathfinder -> Add Shape to Area



Job done.

Cheers!

Jim

[HdE]

...And I saw this just a few hours before I have to do a project where exactly this sort of thing is called for.

Jim, you're my hero today.

[James]

Question: when I letter on illustrator, my text and ballons are a very dark grey rather than the deep black of the library. I usually drop the lettering back into Photoshop and adjust the layer to darken it to black. What am I doing wrong?

[Kev Levell]

I think it's a CMYK print problem. The area will always look greyer if there is no colour below the black... even if you're printing 100% black. Black is always the last colour to go down and will 'trap' the areas of colour already printed, the problem occurs because the black goes down over blank areas of white.

To stop this, you have to call out a black that's made up of percentages of the CM&Y as well. I think 50% of each should do it. I can't remember off the top of my head what printers call it (true black?) but the percentages are slightly different.
There is a downside to doing this though, as when things are printed using plates, if there is any movement of the plates during printing, you will get areas of colour poking out from behind the black.

There are a lot more variables besides this... paper can have a massive effect upon the print too.
I'm not sure I've explained it very well or used the correct terminology, and this is usually a problem I notice on professionally printed material... if you're finding this with a domestic printer, it must be something to do with how the driver is outputting the file from illustrator. I still reckon if you ramp up the sliders on the colour portions of the black it should sort it out.

I hope I've remembered this correctly and forgive me if I've been guilty of teaching granny to suck eggs.

[Jim_Campbell]

Question: when I letter on illustrator, my text and ballons are a very dark grey rather than the deep black of the library. I usually drop the lettering back into Photoshop and adjust the layer to darken it to black. What am I doing wrong?

Two possibilities:

1 - Illustrator has an annoying habit of defaulting to a faux black that's not actually black. Check that it isn't using something stupid like this:



instead of K100.

2 - More likely, Illustrator is set to show accurate black:



This is because lettering black is K100 and artwork black is usually Rich Black, which is something like C75M75Y40K100. Rich Black actually IS blacker than lettering black. If you're lettering for web or screen, adjusting your lettering black to match your artwork black is fine.

If you're lettering for print, it's imperative that you leave your lettering at K100 only, or your lettering risks being rendered illegible by the slightest hint of misregistration.

If none of that applies, let me know and I'll have another ponder.

Cheers!

Jim

[James]

Cheers for the replies, v. helpful.

Just a suggestion: how about a word or two on sound effects and what to/ not to do?

Example: a long drawn out no, Ep 3 Vader style should include a couple on 'N's at the beginning,

NNNOOOOOOOO!!!

Rather than

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Which would read noo rather than no.

[HdE]

Wouldn't that be subjective, though?

I mean, possibly that would be taking us into territory where we find ourselves asking 'does a monster say 'Raaagh' or 'grooon'?'