Comic styles and poster prints…

Every once in a while when I get a little bored I like to experiment in Photoshop a bit. A few weeks ago I decided to try to to come up with a method of converting photos to a comic book style. I’d seen effects that were close to what I wanted but none of them was exactly what I had in mind. With a bit of experimenting I’ve come up with an action that I’m really happy with – but it all comes down to personal taste I guess.

This was the first photo I used the effect on – Tegan posing with Adam’s new car. Seeing as it was just in time for Christmas, Tegan decided to get a poster sized print made for Adam – in the end we got a HUGE print made – A0 size ( 1189mm × 841mm).  Somewhat surprisingly Officeworks was able to print it this size for relatively cheaply, and despite my expectations the quality was really decent. The tonal variations aren’t as good as a good quality photo print, but considering my effect strips out most tonal variations anyway this wasn’t an issue.

While I was really happy with the end result, getting there was a real headache. I think we spent something like 3hours at Officeworks… First I got some smaller (A3) prints made of six different versions of the photo done to choose which one looked best printed. After we’d selected the one we liked best it was time to get the full size print made, however they told me that it would be on different paper stock and a different printer – which essentially made the proofs I’d printed worthless.  So I asked if I could get a small proof printed on the actual printer, but apparently they don’t do that – I even offered to pay for the proof but no joy. After some ‘discussions’ with them about the risk of blind printing such a large photo – especially one where the colour is so important (I was really worried the car would come out pink) – they told me that if  I wasn’t happy with the result I wouldn’t have to pay. That seemed silly to me when a proof would be much cheaper for them, but it suited me just fine.

Thankfully the full size print was spot on, so the next hurdle would be mounting the beast. I decided to join two A1 sized foam-core boards together and stick it down on that using spray adhesive. It’s not an easy job to stick such a large photo down without creases or air bubbles, but with Tegan’s help and a calm stressful disposition we got the job done. Mounted on the wall with some 3M removable velcro picture hangers and it looks a treat!

I must be in a comic mood at the moment, because I’m running my action on nearly everything now….

To my delight I found it even works on videos in Photoshop – very cool!

As for the exact technique? Well for now I’m keeping it a secret – but I’ll probably post a tutorial soon. But if you’d like to try it now, I’ll tell you it’s similar to most of the ‘comic style’ tutorials around…