Welcome back to another very exciting tutorial here at the PhotoshopTrainingChannel.com.
My name is Jesus Ramirez and you can find me on Twitter @JRfromPTC.
In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to create comic action lines and halftone
patterns in Photoshop. For this tutorial, we're going to use a free script called Comic
Kit. This add-on was created by Daichi Ito, who works for Adobe as a User Experience Designer.
He also created the Flame Generator and the Tree Generator, which are now built into Photoshop.
I've done tutorials for both plug-ins, which you probably have seen. If not, look at the
description below for the links to those tutorials. If you want to keep up with Daichi and his
work, you can follow him on his Behance page Behance.net/daich, that is D-A-I-C-H.
So, the first thing that you need to do for this tutorial is install the Comic Kit add-on,
which allows you to create highly customizable Screen Patterns, Zoom Lines, and Speed Lines.
You can download Comic Kit at this URL or you can simply click on the link in the description
of this video. You will need an Adobe ID to install this add-on. After you log in, you
will need to click on the free button that will appear in this area. I've already installed
the add-on, so my button, instead, reads "View my add-ons." As a side note, you may also
want to download the Cloth Texture Generator, which allows you to add realistic cloth textures
to your designs and illustrations. I don't think Daichi coded this add-on, but it was
created by someone else at Adobe. In any case, it's a great add-on, and one that you should
definitely try. Once you've installed Comic Kit, you should be able to follow along with
this tutorial. We're going to use this quick drawing that I created specifically for this
video, and we're going to get to add some dramatic Zoom Lines using Comic Kit. You can
download this image from my website if you want to follow along.
Okay, let's get started with the tutorial. Now, before we continue, make sure that you
have the script installed in your version of Photoshop, that way you can follow along.
So, I'm working with two files. I have a background layer, which is this the white background
and this character layer here. And I'm going to have one more blank layer, and I'm going
to put that blank layer in-between the character and the background, and I'm just going to
call this layer "action lines." Then, I'm going to click on the Pen Tool and I'm going
to create a Path that's going to help the Script create the action lines. So the first
point that I'm going to create will determine the center of the action lines and the second
point will determine the end. So I'm going to click here to set the first point which
is the center, and then, here, to create the second point, which is the end.
Now make sure that the path is selected. In my case, it is. And, in case you don't have
your path selected, just click on the Path Selection Tool, and click on the Path, and
now, it's selected. Then, go into Edit, Fill, or you can also press Shift Backspace, which
is what I will do next time I come in to the Fill window. And under Contents, select Pattern,
and then, check Script, and choose Speed Lines from the drop down, and press OK. Photoshop
is going to bring up the Speed Lines window and you're going to have a whole bunch of
options, but first, make sure that you select Default so that you and I are looking at the
same thing. Then, I'm simply going to press OK. We're going to talk about these options
in a moment. So, then, Photoshop automatically creates those speed lines. Now, you can see
how they work. The first point that we set created the center of the speed lines, and
the last point created the end. The lines are very thin towards the center and very
big in the outside. And you can also see that we set the point, here, and you can sort of
imagine this point revolving around this center point, which is why we don't have any lines
out in the outside. So, I'm simply going to Undo the last step, so I'm going to go to
Edit, Step Backward, and next time, I'll just press Ctrl Alt Z, Command Option Z on the
Mac, to do multiple Undo's. And what I'm going to do now is I'm going to extend this line,
so that the speed lines cover the entire canvass next time I run the script.
So, I'm going to select the Direct Selection Tool, select that point, click and drag it
out. Then, I'm going to press Shift Backspace to bring up the Fill window, and make sure
that I have Speed Lines selected under Script and press OK. Now if I press OK one more time,
you'll see that this time, Photoshop will cover the entire canvass with the speed lines
here at the bottom. And, actually, it looks like I need to expand that point even further,
which I will do, so I'm going to Zoom Out. Press A on the keyboard to select the Direct
Selection Tool, and I'm, actually, going to Undo the action lines, so I'm going to press
Ctrl Alt Z, Command Option Z on the Mac, then I'm going to click and drag this point out
even further. I'm going to press Shift Backspace, and, now, we're going to talk about the options
in the Speed Lines window. So, the first thing you need to worry about is the Line Type.
Right now, were looking at Zoom. It creates the Zooming effect. We can, also, create a
Speed Effect, which is going to create this effect here. We're going to talk about this
more in a moment, but for now, we're going to focus on Zoom. You, also, have different
line widths, and I'm just going to select just a few here just so you can see how they
work. This one is a reverse line width, so in this particular case, the thicker part
of the line is in the inside, and the thinner part is in the outside.
You also have Waves, which create these waves emitting from the center, and you have Even,
which creates even lines, so the thickness is the same, both in the end and in the beginning.
Now, I didn't go through all of them, but you can feel free to select the different
ones and you'll see how they work. They're very self-explanatory. Now, the reason I chose
Even is so that we can see how these options work. The first thing that I'm going to do
is I'm going to decrease the Line Width, and this will do exactly what you would expect.
It decreases the width of the lines that are created in the Speed Line effect, and I will,
actually, reduce it even more; just to .1 just so we can barely see the lines. The next
option is the Randomness of the Width, so you'll notice that some lines are thicker
than others, that's because we have the randomness set here. So, I can just bring that back down
to zero and all the lines will be the same width. And, actually, let me increase the
width a little bit so we can actually see the lines. The lines are way too thin, maybe,
leave it at .1; okay, that's a good number for. Then, we have Spacing. Spacing is the
spacing between each of the lines. So, right now, it's at 1. I can increase that, and you'll
see it now that we have fewer lines. Also, this is the randomness of the spacing, so
if we bump this up, some lines will be really close together, and other lines will be really
far apart. So, I'm just going to bring this back down to zero, and, we have the Center
Space.
The Center Space is how much space we have in the center circle. So, obviously, a low
center space will give us no space here on the end, and a high center space will create
a white image. So, if you bring the Center Space down, you'll start to see some of the
lines come back. So I'm just going to put that right about here. Then we have the Randomness
of the Center Space. Notice that some of these lines go into the center more than others.
If you set this to zero, we'll have a perfect circle. So, I hope that this gives you a good
idea of what each of these sliders do. Now, the Advance Tab has more options. We can set
the color of the line, for example, red. Now, I, probably, wouldn't change the color here
because when you create these lines in a transparent layer, the color that you're using will be
solid, and then, you'll have transparent pixels. So, it's very easy to give color to it later,
so, for now, I'll just leave this at black.
And one of the other options here is the Transparency, so if I bump this up, you'll notice that these
lines will have different levels of transparency, which is why some of these lines have different
shades of gray. And you have a Vibration Randomness. This sort of helps you create, maybe, like
a pencil sketch effect. So I'm going to go back into the Basic Tab. Now, we're going
to talk about the Custom Presets. So, I'm going to just show you a few other custom
presets. This is a Speed Line Preset and there's several-- this one's called Speed Line Wind,
and we also have some presets for Zoom Lines, so here's a Zoom Line Even 1, Zoom Line Explode,
which is the one that I like. This is a very classic comic book effect, and Zoom Line Radiation,
and the one we're going to use for this tutorial Zoom Line Standard Bold number 2, and I'm
just going to press OK.
Now, the effect is pretty good but I have one problem. I'm not really getting any Zoom
Lines here on top, and I'd like to have some. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to Undo
this, click on this point using the Direct Selection Tool. Direct that towards the center
of his body, maybe, this point here, and run that effect again. Shift Backspace, and this
time, I'm going to make a few changes. I'm going to increase the width of the lines,
maybe, a little bit more, and I'm, also, going to decrease the Center Space, just a little
bit, and increase the Center Space Randomness, and I'll press OK. And that looks pretty good.
So now I have my character. I have the action lines. Notice that it's in a layer with transparency.
So that means that I can double click on it, and I can apply a Color Overlay, for example,
so maybe I can select red as the color, or any other color that I like. I can, also,
apply Gradient, for example, so, maybe, select something that's a little more noticeable,
so, maybe, something like this; you're going to really see the gradient there. In this
case, I'm just going to not add a color to it or anything like that. I'm just going to
cancel this. And this is the final effect. I'm going to create a new layer. What I'm
going to do is I'm just going to delete this path, so I'm going to select and click on
the Delete key and delete it, and I'm going to create another path, and this time, the
path is going to go across the entire image, like so.
And, what I'm going to do now is I'm just going to create some Speed Lines. I'm going
to hold Shift Backspace and bring up the Fill window, press OK, and I'm just going to go
into Presets, and select Speed Lines Even number 1, and I can press OK, and, now, my
character has some Speed Lines, so you can sort of see that he's moving a little bit.
And I can take advantage of Photoshop features, for example, a Layer Mask, and I can come
in here, and use the Lasso Tool, and I sort of bit into this line here, so let me hold
Alt, Option on the Mac, and Deselect that. And I can fill that with black; Ctrl Backspace,
Command Backspace on the Mac, to fill with black on the Layer Mask, so it hides those
lines there. Then, I can select these lines here; fill with black, again, Ctrl Backspace,
Command Backspace on the Mac, and I can come in and hide these lines, here. And you sort
of get the idea of what I'm doing. I'm hiding the lines that I don't need in order to get
this effect. Now, for the rest of the lines, I'm just going to make the selection with
the Marquee Tool, and fill it with black, fill with black, here, and fill with black
there. Now we have some Speed Lines that helps settle the effect that my character is moving
through space over to the right. At this point, if you want, you can come in and delete that
path. But this is not the effect that I wanted to go for in this image, so I'm just going
to go ahead and delete this layer, and enable the Actions Line, which is what I really wanted.
Now that I'm looking at it, I see this thick line here. If you get something like this
that you're unhappy with, just use something like a Polygonal Lasso Tool and just paint
in something that looks like a triangle, like so, and fill that with black. This time, black
is my foreground color, so I'm going to hold Alt Backspace, Option Backspace on the Mac;
Ctrl D, Command D, to Deselect.
I want to create a new layer, and now I'm going to talk about the Halftone Patterns
that you can create. So, I'm going to go into Edit, Fill. This time I'm going to select
Green Pattern, and then, press OK. And this is going to bring up the Screen Pattern window
this one here. And under Presets, I'm going to go into Default, that way we're all looking
at the same thing. And, as you can see, you can create a halftone pattern. So this is
the Pattern Scale, so notice as I drag this over, the scale is going to shift. Now, this
slider controls the left side. So, notice how if I bring this up here, this is dark,
the pattern scale 2 controls the right side. So, look at the difference. See that change
there? So you can make adjustments to your patterns here. This one is how many dots you
see. So, for example, if I drag this all the way to the left, you'll only see one, and
the further I drag it to the right, you'll start seeing more, and you can just keep making
adjustments to these sliders to see how they work. Now, the one thing on the Advanced Tab
that I will talk about is the Pattern Type, for example.
We have Circle. You have Squares — More like diamonds, really-- Stars, Leaves, Hearts,
and I'm not going to go through all of them but you get the idea, so I'm just going to
set mine to Circle and I'm going to go back to the Basic Tab, and talk about the different
custom presets. And, again, I'm just going to click on a few slots one. That's another
one there; another one there. And, as you can see, there's a whole bunch of different
ones that you can do that you can use for a lot of different things. In this case, I'm
just going to stick with the Default Pattern, and I'm just going to press OK. And Photoshop
goes in and fills in the halftone pattern. Again, the only pixels that are opaque are
the black ones. There's no real white; the white is the background. you can double click
on this layer and just, as with the other layer, you can click on Color Overlay and
set it to red or whatever other color that you want to color your halftones.
And that's it for this tutorial. I hope that you enjoyed it and that you learned something
new. If you have any comments or questions, leave them down below. If you enjoyed the
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