Things I've learned about making comics

[Korin]

Thanks, I really needed that.

BACK TO MATH HOMEWORK, WOO.

[MadCat]

Oh wise master guru Dave, can you please tell me your advice for keeping file sizes small? My comics are simple black-and-white, but they're still as large as some of your biggest color images (I checked the sizes on some Squishy strips for comparison, you're usually in a range between 150 and 315k.) I tried flattening the layers before saving (it helped a little) as well as saving as a gif rather than a jpg (helped a bit more.) But my file sizes are still huge! As a gif the last strip I did was about 304k. As a jpg it would have been about 545-600k or so. (I forget the exact size.)

I think I may have asked you this before, come to think of it, but I can't remember what you said. I can't figure out how you get your strips so nice and small!! I dunno. Maybe it's a format thing, and I should try to learn to make smaller 'strip' size comics rather than 'page' style comics. Either way, though, I need smaller file sizes. *puppy dog eyes* Can you help me? Pwease?

[Dave]

You may already do some of these steps, but here's what I suggest (I'm not in front of my computer, so I may not have the full details here). Again, I assume that you're working on Photoshop:

Drop all color information on file. I believe it's under 'edit -> mode -> grayscale'. I go with grayscale over black and white to get smooth lines. Plus you sometimes use shading techniques.

Flatten images (you said you do this already).

Save the file as a JPG, reducing quality in favor of smaller file sizes. Select 'save as -> jpeg'. It'll ask you about saving options. One of them should be along the lines of quality/file size, with either a slider or numeric value. For black and white, you can go as low as 5 or 6 (medium quality) and it'll still look good. Also, make sure you go with progressive scan (I believe that's what it's called). Select '5 scans'.

That should do it for now. If you do all of this, I'll think about other ways to cut file size.

[MadCat]

Awesome, thank you so much! *hug!* I'll try some of those out!

Also, when you said "I go with grayscale over black and white to get smooth lines." - Did you mean for just your black and white work, or if you want to do a color image, do you do the lines in grayscale and then convert back to color?

Edit: Woot! Tried your advice and got the image down to 275kb. Thank you!

[Dave]

Only for black and white. Stick to RGB (for web and computer work). Switch to CMYK for prints.

[MadCat]

Ok, cool, thanks.

[Korin]

I had a little "Sketch Off" with a buddy of mine in CST class Thursday. He drew his realistical figures n' such and I converted them into cartoons, complete with mocking speech bubbles.

Ah, it was pretty fun.

I'm having trouble with eyes and noses... Maybe I'll practice some today.

I WISH SO MOOCH THAT I COULD SHOW YOU FOLKS SOME OF MY NEW STUFFZ.

i r saded...

[MadCat]

Is you can has DeviantArt account?

[Korin]

thief-korin.deviantart.com

there r it is can has thank you

[MadCat]

Hey Dave, about what Font Size are you using? I'm still experimenting with getting mine to look right; I think the next strip I made (#18) the text is too small. I'm reducing my strips to 25% when posting, but I'm considering maybe making it only 33.3% since it seems to make the text size better. Not sure.