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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.
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Works just as well in greyscale as color, too. 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. 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). 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.
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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.
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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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