Adding images to comics

Sometimes you will want to use use photographs in your comics. This could be a picture of you or one of your friends, or a photo that would make a great background. Sometimes you will find a graphic on the internet you want to use (although please respect others’ copyrights). Sometimes you will want to create a graphic in another program to use in a comic. All of these things can be done.

Comic Strip Factory can import graphics with a file format of JPEG (file extension of .jpg or .jpeg) or PNG (file extension of .png) into comic documents. JPEG is the typical format used for photographs. PNG is similar, but it allows the image to have sections that are transparent, while JPEG does not. PNG is a good format for things like logos, icons, and illustrations that you want to be able to show seamlessly against a background. Both formats are supported natively in web content, and both can be exported by Comic Strip Factory. Most programs that allow you to create graphics will be able to export in one or both of these formats.

An image can be imported directly into a comic panel or into a group that is open in the group editor. It can not be imported into a part, or a group or a path inside a part.

Importing an image by drag and drop

There are several ways you can import images by drag and drop. For all of them, you can drag into a comic or into a group editing view. When dragging into a comic view, whichever panel in the comic you drag over will be highlighted, and the panel that is highlighted when you drop the image will be the destination of the drop.

Importing a file from the Finder

If the graphic you want to use is in a file on your computer, you can drag the file into a comic panel or the group editor. If the image is larger than the panel in both dimensions, it will be scaled down to fit. It uses a fit-to-fill technique, which means part of the image may be cropped in one dimension but the whole panel will be filled by the image. This can be useful for using photos for backgrounds. This scaling down does not reduce the quality (resolution) or the file size of the image.

Importing from a photo catalog program

If you have an image in a photo cataloging program, you may be able to drag it directly from that program into Comic Strip Factory. This works with Apple’s programs iPhoto, Photos, and Photo Booth. It may work with others. If you have a program this technique does not work with, you should try exporting the photo from that program to a file, then importing that file into Comic Strip Factory.

Importing from a web browser

If you have found an image in a web browser, you may be able to drag it straight into Comic Strip Factory. Whether this works or not may depend on how the image is incorporated into the site. The fancier the interactivity on the site, the better the chance the click on the picture will be intercepted for some other purpose and won’t allow you to drag it. One thing to try in these cases is to right-click or control-click it and choose Open Image In New Window. Then you will usually be able to drag the image from that window.

Importing an image with a file dialog

If you have the image in a file but would rather not have to find it in the Finder, you can use the Import Image… command in the File menu. This will bring up a file dialog, allowing you to find and choose your image file. The image will be imported into the current panel of the comic.

Manipulating images in comics

Once you have imported an image, you can move it from panel to panel, and you can transform it in many of the same ways you can transform comic parts, including scaling, rotating, and skewing.

You can also crop images and apply masking paths to them, which is covered in Creating masks for images .