So I combine its use with iWatermark for watermarking and different titles, and with Picasa for collages.
It could use more page templates with other shapes. So instead of having hundreds of pictures (which I do) I have to select the best, think about the composition and the messages, and then play around a bit until I have the finished product. I usually have a one to two page "comic" which depicts the story, eg my grandson giving me a violin concert, my so-called diet whilst in Florence, my motorcycle trips to Bruges, Gant, Venice, Milan, the Alps, the wine vendimia in Champagne, thru Andalucia, etc. I have been using Comic for the last year or two and find it excellent for my purpose which is to tell a "story" with the pictures of my travels around Europe and with the outings with my kids and/or grandchildren. For, say, black floating text with a white outside border, this has the effect of making the text itself look really spindly if the border is thicker.
It's in there, but hard to find things if you don't know where they are, and they aren't always clearly labeled with what they do.Īlso, it's a shame there's no "outline" feature to SFX text-if you add a border to text, the border ends up centered on the text outline, with no option to give it an external "halo". My only other complaints are that accessing the advanced text features is cumbersome, since most of it is buried in tiny tabs in a small floating properties window, and it's organized the way I'd expect. Functional, but clumsy, so I usually end up adding balloons in Manga Studio. The only disadvantage to using it in this completely non-standard way: If you're not using ComicLife to do the panels themselves, clipping SFX or dialogue balloons to the edge of panels is awkward-it requires adding an invisible, borderless panel overlaying the one in the image and putting the text inside it. Works just as well in greyscale as color, too.
#COMIC LIFE FOR MAC PDF#
The sound effect lettering tools are also great-you can stretch, bend, tweak, and outline fully-editable text to your heart's content.įor my use, if I set up page sizes correctly, import full-page images, and set them to "actual size", I can then add lettering on top and export a 1:1 pixel-accurate PDF of each page with correctly anti-aliased text added. It supports advanced OpenType text features (auto ligatures, etc), is extremely fast and smooth-feeling, and tweaking the size of a balloon-shaped dialogue box is fast and easy.
#COMIC LIFE FOR MAC SOFTWARE#
Unfortunately, the English-language lettering tools in that software are a disaster (no kerning or ligatures at all, awkward, etc), so I need something else for lettering, and Comic Life is exactly the tool I need for that. In my case, I have an artist that works in Manga Studio (Clip Studio Pro).
#COMIC LIFE FOR MAC PROFESSIONAL#
While this app is clearly designed for casual consumer use, it's actually a fully functional professional tool as well.
Its priced modestly & is sure worth the price. Perhaps their new drawing app will address that part of the equation more robustly. If you have to draw the panels in relative context - you are doing it elsewhere already. For that it would be a little awkward production tool, though I have used it similarly.
The script page addition in version 3 was a nice touch.Ĭreating actual comic strips or graphic novels with it is quite possible, but not ideal.Ĭonsistent line weights from frame-to-frame could become a problem, if you used this to generate an “approaching professional” level comic. The multiple panel templates & type of “flyer” pages is really very nice as a starting point to generate “how-to’s” & gag flyers. I’d recommend Comic Life, if that means anything to anybody. You CAN storyboard effectively with it, even if you aren’t a killer artist.ĪND they are about to release some type of draw application soon, too. Pretty cool for single panels & smart cracks attached to photos.
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