Seeing as many people struggle with editing layouts for comics, I thought it’d be a good idea to share some of my personal techniques that I use when I make mine. This is a very simple and straightforward tutorial that doesn’t require prior experience with editing software, as every used tool and method is thoroughly explained both with text and pictures.
Seeing as I’m too much of a cheapstake to upgrade stuff, I’m using Windows XP and Adobe Photoshop CS2, so you might see some aesthetic differences in the software. Still, if you have Photoshop CS1 or up, all these methods should be appliable. I can’t vouch for them being useful with other editing software, though, since my experience is limited to Adobe products. Even so, I’m no actual expert on Photoshop, so I won’t always use the right terms to describe what I’m doing – but I think you’ll understand what I mean, so, no biggie.

Note that this tutorial only teaches you how to make a basic layout, speechbubble and sound effect. It won’t teach you more advanced, “cool” editing techniques. I might do some later on, or maybe someone else will.

Also, I highly recommend clicking the pictures in the post to see them in high resolution, since they demonstrate each step.

1. Starting Off

For this tutorial, I took four screenshots in Garry’s Mod in order to demonstrate how to make a GMod comic layout. Here are the original versions, unedited:

Yes, I know, they’re pretty bad pictures. Simple posing, use of a Combine NPC, lack of muzzleflash, etc. This isn’t a posing tutorial, it’s a layout tutorial! Anyway, go ahead and use them to accompany the tutorial, if you’d like.

Now, the first thing I should refer on my personal method is that, unlike most people, my comics aren’t one long layout. Rather, I separate each comic by pages, just like a rea comic book would. The reason for this is that it helps you create a clear, better envisioned layout. Obviously, you don’t have to do this in your own comics, but, for this tutorial, I’ll teach you how to make a basic page layout, like the ones I make.
Each page is made with the size of 1000×1414 pixels - that is, an image with the width of 1000 pixels and height of 1414 pixels. The value isn’t random; I make my comics with this page size because it’s got the proportions of an European A4 page. Still, like I said, you make your comics however you want, but feel free to use my size choices if you’d like!
So, the page will have these proportions:

With that in mind, you can envision what type of layout you will have for this. If you’ve read comic books, you know panels aren’t simply placed in a vertical row – they’re placed dynamically, as the layout itself is a means to tell a story. If you want a big, epic moment, you might for a “splash page” – that is, a full page with only one image -, but if you have a dialogue, you might have a number of smaller panels organized in the page.
In this case, we have four images for one page. For the tutorial’s example, I settled on the following layout:

The first image goes to the upper panel, being resized to a shape of 1000×500 pixels; the second and third panels are placed in sequence at the middle of the page, both with the size of 500×414 pixels; the last panel will have the image of the unfortunate headshot Combine, at the same size as the first panel, 1000×500 pixels. It’s a clean, symmetrical layout that works well.
Remember, though – take into account what you want the page to demonstrate if you’re making layouts per page, like this one. If it’s a dynamic, comic book style sequence, add more panel and be more original! Don’t settle with just one template for every page, be sure to try many layouts.

As my screen resolution is set to 1280×800 pixels, we first need to resize and crop our original screenshots. That’s the first step I’m going to teach you.

2. Resizing and Cropping

If you have some experience with image editing software, you might want to skip this step, as it might be familiar territory.

First of all, let’s open the first screenshot on the software. On Windows, it’s as simple as right-clicking the picture and selecting Open with > <Software name>; in my case, the software is Adobe Photoshop CS2.
If you’re using Photoshop (which you should, for this tutorial), your screen should look something like this right now:

It’ll probably not look exactly the same, since I’ve customized mine a bit, but somewhat similar. What we need to have in common for this, though, is the Tools and Layers side bars – they’re the left and bottom right side bars. If you don’t, go to Window on the menu bar up top, and check “Tools” and “Layers”. They should pop up somewhere now.

Okay, first, we’ll resize the first picture. To do that, you need to go to Image > Image Size…, or just press Alt+Ctrl+I.

Once you select it, a new window called “Image Size” will pop up. There, you can alter the width and height of the picture. It’s important to make sure Constrain Proportions, on the bottom, is checked, otherwise the picture might be deformed when you alter the values.
Right now, the Pixel Dimensions of the image should be Width: 1280 pixels and Height: 800 pixels. Change the Width to 1000 pixels; if Constrain Proportions is checked, then the Height will automatically change to 625 pixels, as seen here:

Now, do the obvious and press OK. The picture will change size, and now we have the ideal width. Still, we want our first panel to be 500 in height, but we can’t alter that on Image Size without deforming the image (at least, as far as I know). To get the picture we want, we’ll have to crop it – that is, to cut parts of it so we get our ideal size.
One side note: it’s a good idea to make sure your pictures are ample enough so you can crop it while editing without losing important parts. Imagine that we had two characters talking – if they’re on the corners of the screenshot, you might end up cutting them while editing, so be careful. Always plan ahead!

So, to crop the picture, here’s what we do: go to Image again, and select Canvas Size… (or just use the shorcut keys Alt+Ctrl+C).

Another window will pop up. Here, what we want to do is go to New Size and change the Height to 500 pixels.

Notice the part where it says Anchor. The bottom and top arrows should now be pointing towards the white middle part, whereas before they were pointed outwards. That means the image will crop both at the top and bottom of the image; that is, we’ll lose around 62,5 pixels from the top and bottom of the picture.
If your picture is a locked background – as a JPEG image would be if you opened it in Photoshop -, Anchor is important because it dictates what parts of the image will be removed when you crop. In this case, you should leave it as it is.
Once you’re done – again, select OK, though that’s so simple I shouldn’t need to tell you that -, and assuming you’re doing this process with me for practice with my images, you’ll end up with this:

Our original picture, but altered to a nice 1000x500px dimension that we can use. Great!

Now let’s appy the same process to the second picture, which will become a 500x414px panel once we’re done with it. Open it up, and select Image > Image Size… - but, now, don’t alter the Width to 500px. If you do, you’ll end up with an image shorter than we need. Instead, alter the Height to 414 pixels, as seen here:

The image will become 662x414px in dimensions. Now what we have to do is crop part of its width so it fits with our planned layout.
Again, go to Image > Canvas Size…, and crop the image to a Width of 500 pixels.

As you can see on the image, I went to Anchor and moved the white block to the left. This will make it so only the right of the picture gets cropped, which I thought looked better. Try it yourself! You’ll end up with this:

Now, apply the same process to the third picture, so we end up with a 500x414px version. Here’s what I came up with:

And, for the last picture, I repeated the first steps to get a 1000x500px version:

Now that we’re done with resizing the pictures, time for the next step: placing them in our layout.

3. Forming the Layout

First of all, we should create a new blank image to work with. First, you gotta go where every new file is created on the Windows OS – File > New…, or just press Ctrl+N.

A new window will appear, aply titled New. You can title it or keep it as “Untitled-<Value>”; it’s more or less irrelevant now, since you’ll title it when you save anyway. For the sake of simplicity, I titled it “Comic Page Layout”.
What’s important is to size the image. Set the Width to 1000 pixels and the Height to 1414 pixels, so we have our A4-shaped page. You can keep the rest the same.

You should know have something like this:

Note: You might find the Zoom Tool (shortcut Z) useful from now on, since we’ll be working with a big image. It should be near the end of the Tools bar, as seen here:

Now what you want to do is start copying our resized screenshots and pasting them on the new file. There’s two quick steps to copying pictures in Photoshop:
First, go to Select > All (shortcut Ctrl+A) to select the entire image:

Two, is using Copy to, uh, copy the image. If you don’t know how to copy stuff, how the hell do you use computers? It’s Edit > Copy, or Ctrl+C. There’s also a Copy Merged option that’s very useful, but not necessary for this tutorial. Just thought you should know about it.

Copy the first screenshot and paste it on the new file (don’t make me teach you how to paste stuff…). It should have been positioned at the center, way off from where we want it, as a new layer:

We need to move it, obviously. Do you know how to move it? I know how to move it. If you don’t know how to move it, let me teach you how: with the Move Tool! It’s at the very top of the Tools bar, and its keyboard shortcut is V.

Check the options displayed below the menu bar when you select the Move Tool, specifically Auto Select Layer.

I’m not here to teach you Photoshop, but I thought it was worth mentioning, since it’s very useful. When “Auto Select Layer” is checked, a layer you click with the Move Tool will be automatically selected; if it’s not, clicking and dragging with the Move Tool will move the currently selected layer, despite where you first clicked. Right now, since we’re going to be moving different layers, it might be more practical to keep it checked, but on some occasions in the future you might want to disable this.

Anyway, with the Move Tool, drag our resized screenshot up top. It should fit in nicely, right where we want it:

That’s pretty much all to it, so go ahead and do the same steps with our other resized images. Soon, you should have exactly this:

See? I know it’s been tiresome, but it’s already coming together! Now we’re getting to the important parts, the ones most people fail at, so pay attention. First, though, let’s check the Layers.
As previously mentioned, there’s a Layer bar, which, in my window, I’ve set at the bottom right. Since you’ve been pasting new images, they should have become layers (unless you’re using some software I don’t know of). I suggest you reorganize them, like this:

Now, onto what I consider the “fun” part (and what most people consider the real drag of editing): making borders!

4. Making Borders

Okay, to start with, you need to know how to handle the Magic Wand Tool. Yeah, there’s a magic wand – I told you this was fun!

Make sure you have the layer for the first screenshot – which, in my files, is called “Layer 1“, and, if you’ve been doing it like me, should have the same name in your stuff – selected, and then click with the Magic Tool on the empty space of that layer. Seeing as our picture occupies the top of the page, clicking any of the three other panels with Layer 1 selected in Layers should do. All that empty area will now be selected:

 

What we want, though, as you’ll see, is actually the inverse area – the first screenshot itself, and, believe it or not, this is the easiest way to select it.
Now go to Select > Inverse (Shift+Ctrl+I)…

… and now we’ll have the first picture’s space completely selected!

Right now, though, we should create a new layer, because, if you happen to make a mistake with the borders (which happens to me all the time), it’s easier to correct. To do that, go to Layer > New > Layer… (or Shift+Ctrl+N):

A new window will pop up. You can change the name of the layer, if you want, but otherwise you don’t really need to alter anything. Just leave it like this:

Now, you should have this:

If the new layer isn’t on top, drag it up on the Layer menu. Also, the area of Layer 1 should still be selected. We’re going to need that empty space on the new layer now.
Go to Edit > Stroke…:

A new window will pop up! Here, you need to do three things: first, on Width, insert 5; second, on Color, select White; third, on Location, make sure it’s Inside.

If you’ve been following me well so far, you’ll end up with this:

Woohoo! A white border! Not too shabby, eh?

Now, repeat the same steps, but this time working with the bottom panel – you know, the one with the Combine getting his brains blown out, if you’re using the pictures I provided. Make sure to create a new layer for the white stroke! Trust me, if you get used to doing that, you’ll be spared a lot of mistakes.
You should end up with this:

So, did you? Fantastic!
Now, you might be tempted to do the same with the two remaining panels – but, if you do, the layout will end up looking like a mess. Why? Because the middle frames will seem to have thicker borders, as you’ll have twice the white. Instead of jumping to that, make another new layer, and instead use another tool – the basic Rectangular Marquee Tool (M):

What you want to do now is use this Tool to manually select the space you want for the border. And what you want is to select the whole picture, plus the white border on top and below it, and a bit extra on the side so the stroke ends up being better centered on the page. If you don’t understand what I mean, just check the image:

See how it covers the white borders from the top and bottom frames and catches about 2-3 pixels of the panel on the right? Once you stroke it, it’ll look like this:

Now, when you move to the right panel, what you want to do is cover the whole picture and the white borders surrounding it. Do not add extra pixels from the left image like you just did! Just do it so it ends up being this:

And there you have it. I know, it’s complicated, but it’s how it looks best. At least, that’s what I think, but I’ve had a few years to practice this, and it’s my favorite method.
Right now, and assuming you’ve followed my advice to keep creating new layers for each border, you should have this:

So now you have four layers of borders. Next is… merge them down.
Yeah, I know, it looks like it was a waste of time to create new layers for each, but, like I said, it avoids mistakes until you get here.
To merge a layer with the layer below, go to Layer > Merge Layers, or press Ctrl+E. Keep doing it until you only have one layer with the borders, keeping the other layers intact.

Now, pick your Magic Wand again, Harry Potter, but look at the options for it below the menu bar. See that box labeled Contiguous? Uncheck it.

Now, when you click a color or, in our case, empty space, it’ll select all the parts like that, even if they’re not directly contiguous. We need that for the next step.
Select the layer with the borders and click on the empty space – i.e. space that is not white border. You’ll end up with this:

Now, get back to the Stroke option, but change the Width to 2 and the Color to Black. Make sure the Location is still set as Inside.

Once you’re done with that, you’ll have this picture:

Congratulations! If you’ve managed to reach this point, you can already do more than a lot of the Garry’s Mod comic making community!
Of course, true layout editing doesn’t stop here. The next step is making speechbubbles.

5. Speechbubbles

The majority of stories have dialogue; in comics, dialogue is expressed through speechbubbles. Now you’ll learn how to make them easily in a time-saving way (hopefully!).
First of all, you need fonts. Good comic fonts, not Arial or Comic Sans. My favorite site is Blambot, which has an assortment of free and paid fonts available. I’m not going to teach you how to install fonts, partly because I’m not sure if the method is still the same, but you can Google that quickly. Just make sure you pick a few good dialogue and Sound FX fonts – for this, I’m using Anime Ace 2, Armor Piercing 2 and Feast of Flesh.

To begin with, you’ve got to use the Horizontal Type Tool (shortcut T):

Select your preferred font for dialogue (in my case, Anime Ace) and the size, which I recommend as 14.

Now, you obviously have to type. I’m going with a simple line – “Damn it, a sniper.” -, because I’m not exactly writing an Eisner award-winning comic here, just a sample page.
Make sure the text is centered, as it will look better. Also, don’t write it as one single line – make sure the text would fit a round bubble. In this case, separate “Damn it, a sniper.” in two lines – first “Damn it,”, and second “a sniper”.

Now, go to where you picked the Rectangular Marquee Tool, but press and drag the button. A few new options will appear; from there, you’ll want Elliptical Marquee Tool, which will give us the overall shape of the speechbubble.

Now, draw the speechbubble’s shape around the text. One common mistake I see many people doing is drawing the bubble extremely close to the text, thus “tightening” it. It doesn’t look too good, so you make sure to leave a bit of white space around the text. Not too much, just so that it doesn’t look too cramped. And also, create a new layer – you’ll need it.

Now go pick the Paint Bucket Tool (G). If you have Windows, I assume you’ve at least tried Microsoft Paint once, so you should know what this does. We’ll want the color White here – although, if you want your speechbubble to have a different color, pick it now. I recommend standard white though.

Go ahead and fill your clean new layer with the bubble shape.

We’re getting there, but we’re not finished.
Now, it’s vital that you create a new layer on top of this one. It’s necessary to make the speechbubble’s tail. You might think it’s simpler to just paint it on the same speechbubble that we just made, but then there’ll be a noticeable gap between the bubble and the tail. Create this new layer, and when we have the shape we’ll merge them down.

Okay, so, get the Polygonal Lasso Tool. It’s below the Marquee Tool. You probably have the standard Lasso Tool selected, so, like before, click and drag to see all available options.

To use this tool, click once to point where the shape starts. Then click on a spot to the right  to set another dot, then a third one closer to the first one, and either click again on the original dot or twice anywhere to close the shape. What you’ll want here is to form a triangle using three dots.

By the way, I’d like to mention something here. A lot of people that can do nice, or at least decent, speechbubbles point them at the body, eyes or forehead of the character. This might be just me, but I think it makes more sense if it’s coming out of the mouth. You do it as you’d like, I’m just trying to teach you the basics here, but I think it makes more sense.

Anyway, get that Paint Bucket Tool back and paint the tail, preferably with the same color as the bubble.

As you can see, I have two layers for the speechbubble – Layer 6 and Layer 7. You should have two layers, as well. Merge those downs to finish the overall shape of the speechbubble.

We’re not done yet, though. Now we’ll stroke the speechbubble to add that comic book look. You know where to get the Stroke.
Here, the options are 2 for Width, Black for Color, and preferably Outside for the Location. Generally, it’ll look awful if you set it as Inside and a bit jagged if it’s set to Center. You can try with those, but most of the times Outside will do.

Now check what you have. It’ll be akin to this:

A very nice-looking speechbubble! Of course, yours will likely be different depending on how you used the Polygonal Lasso Tool. Personally, I think the ideal shape would be somewhat like the one in the picture, but it’s your call.
There are more complicated techniques for speechbubbles, but, for this specific tutorial, I’m going to limit myself to the basic one we’ve done. It works perfectly on most occasions and, once you get used to it, it’s very simple and quick to do.
We could finish it up here, but, if you’re eager to learn more, I’ll end this tutorial with another part: how to make sound effects.

6. Sound Effects

Not every comic needs them, but it does help the feel of the comic to have a few “WHACKS!”, “BAMS!”, or “BLAMS!” done here and there. This is the part where we’d get more advanced, but, for the sake of keeping it straightforward, I’m just going to tell you two very simple tricks, to finish up our page.

First, get the Horizontal Type Tool and select one of the Sound FX fonts you downloaded. Me, I’m going with Armor Piercing to make a sound for the gunfire on the third panel.
Take note that you want a bigger font size for sound effects – in this case, I find 100 appropriate.

Select your color – me, I’m going with orange, because I relate muzzleflashes with yellow and orange – and just type “BLAM!” next to the gun.

Now, that looks unfinished, so let’s try something else.
Go to Edit > Transform > Skew.

Now, your text will have a rectangle around it. Click the square on its upper right edge and drag it up. Appropriately, the text will become skewed, imitating a bit the trajectory the bullet would have.

Now, select any other tool and a window will pop up, asking if you want to apply the transformation. Naturally, our answer here is “Apply” (unless you hate it).

And there! We have a skewed “BLAM!”, just because we can.
Now, in case you haven’t realized it yet, making a black 2 pixels stroke always turns things better. So just go ahead and do one to make it look more like it’s out of a comic book.
You’ll notice that you can’t actually stroke the text. No worries – pick up the Magic Wand again, make sure “Contiguous” is unchecked, and select the empty space on the text’s layer. Now, Select > Inverse to select the text itself, create a new layer beneath it, and go to Stroke to make a black Outside line! See how we just applied our tools cleverly to get what we wanted?

Sure, it looks simple, but you’ll learn more tricks eventually. For now, it looks pretty good and it fills up the panel nicely.

Let’s do one last one to add more punch to that gory and gruesome last panel. I’m picking Feast of Flesh, which is a suitably-named font for this. Same size, but a red color to look good with the blood.

I’m no expert, but I’m thinking “SPLAT!” is a good onomatopoeia for gory headshots.

Let’s go back to Edit > Transform, but choose Rotate instead.

It’s pretty much the same as Skew in terms of execution – drag the squares to rotate the word.

While it’s true that I just mentioned how Stroke makes everything better (I was kidding, by the way, though it does work nicely a lot of times), I actually chose to leave this one with no black lines, because I thought it fitted the image better like this. Feel free to make your own choice for this! The most important part of comic making is being creative, so always do what you want.

7. ???

???

8. PROFIT!

Yes, we’re done! Congratulations, you just survived Editing Comics 101 – well, not exactly “101″, but you catch my drift.
Obviously, once you’re done, you need to save your document. If you’re working with Photoshop, I strongly recommend keeping a .PSD file as well as saving it in image format (preferably JPEG with quality equal or over 10).
Here’s what my finished page looks ike:

And you just saw all the steps taken to turn a bunch of screenshots into a short comic!

These are only my basic tips for making what I consider to be a good layout, but I hope you liked them and find them useful in the future! At least, if you’ve followed all of it, you really have no excuse to not make a layout -unless your excuse is lack of patience, lack of interest, or lack of funds for getting Photoshop, that is. Still, I did my best here.

Any questions or doubts you might have, feel free to leave them on the comments! Oh, and if you find this useful, please leave a comment on it as well, because I’d love to know if anyone actually learned from this. And feel free to share your own pages if you want!

Thanks for reading this tutorial! Happy comic making!