Comments on: On the Lack of Open Source Comic Software http://thepinksylphide.com/2008/11/16/on-the-lack-of-open-source-comic-software Somewhere in the Land of the Sugarplum Fairy Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:16:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Chris http://thepinksylphide.com/2008/11/16/on-the-lack-of-open-source-comic-software/comment-page-1#comment-10953 Chris Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:44:17 +0000 http://thepinksylphide.com/?p=435#comment-10953 Your experiences with Linux graphics software mirror my own. I'm only able to do more with Gimp than with Photoshop due to familiarity with the former and lack of training/learning of the latter. (That, and I've only used Photoshop a few times in my life; I used Fireworks 4, then MX, on Windows 98, due to it being used in a college course I was taking years back.) The lack of reusable styles in Inkscape is a huge issue for me. I can use various duplication and inheritance, but it always comes up short and is trouble all around. A lack of JPG export is a problem for me when exporting huge photo comics, although if I was doing web comics, I'd be using PNG, as they're relatively small. Inkscape spellchecking is supported in Linux, but maybe not in Windows. When I open the "Text and Font" dialog, and navigate to the "Text" tab, it spellchecks with my install spellchecker. I haven't looked into Karbon yet. I may just have to check it out. Regarding Gimp's interface, I don't have my hopes up, but I wouldn't mind any pleasant surprised it may hold in the future! I've played around with using a tablet, but I can't draw worth anything, so I know I won't be breaking into the web comic scene any time soon =P Funny thing, I can get it working just fine in Linux, but Windows Vista struggles with it. Your experiences with Linux graphics software mirror my own. I’m only able to do more with Gimp than with Photoshop due to familiarity with the former and lack of training/learning of the latter. (That, and I’ve only used Photoshop a few times in my life; I used Fireworks 4, then MX, on Windows 98, due to it being used in a college course I was taking years back.)

The lack of reusable styles in Inkscape is a huge issue for me. I can use various duplication and inheritance, but it always comes up short and is trouble all around. A lack of JPG export is a problem for me when exporting huge photo comics, although if I was doing web comics, I’d be using PNG, as they’re relatively small.

Inkscape spellchecking is supported in Linux, but maybe not in Windows. When I open the “Text and Font” dialog, and navigate to the “Text” tab, it spellchecks with my install spellchecker.

I haven’t looked into Karbon yet. I may just have to check it out.

Regarding Gimp’s interface, I don’t have my hopes up, but I wouldn’t mind any pleasant surprised it may hold in the future!

I’ve played around with using a tablet, but I can’t draw worth anything, so I know I won’t be breaking into the web comic scene any time soon =P Funny thing, I can get it working just fine in Linux, but Windows Vista struggles with it.

]]> By: Laura S http://thepinksylphide.com/2008/11/16/on-the-lack-of-open-source-comic-software/comment-page-1#comment-10907 Laura S Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:39:41 +0000 http://thepinksylphide.com/?p=435#comment-10907 Almost forget. Someone I know has just gone from bitmap over to vector for their web comic. See http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/1434226.html for a post they did on it, and http://www.dolari.org/cs/ for the finished result. One day I might two, but so far I've had little success with graphics tablets, which would be a prerequisite for that. Almost forget. Someone I know has just gone from bitmap over to vector for their web comic. See http://jenndolari.livejournal.com/1434226.html for a post they did on it, and http://www.dolari.org/cs/ for the finished result.

One day I might two, but so far I’ve had little success with graphics tablets, which would be a prerequisite for that.

]]> By: Laura S http://thepinksylphide.com/2008/11/16/on-the-lack-of-open-source-comic-software/comment-page-1#comment-10906 Laura S Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:35:33 +0000 http://thepinksylphide.com/?p=435#comment-10906 I share your frustration. While I still use Windows, I have been for a long time searching for decent Linux replacements for the apps I use to make comics with under XP. I use Paint Shop Pro and Fireworks to my comics. PSP is primarily poor person's Photoshop with some vector and natural media capability - I have a lot of experience using it (and in fact recently upgraded to X2) and like many of the features it has. However, I use an old version of Fireworks MX 2004 to do the finishing touches mainly because it has better export settings and superior vector ability (it's mainly a vector editor with some bitmap capability meant for creating web pages). Adding text and balloons, and creating reusable styles is very easy to do. Looking at replacements, I was pretty disappointed with GIMP which seemed hard to use and had a "clunky UI". It works and no doubt works well (I use it to apply GIMP filters on bitmaps), but learning to use GIMP isn't a pleasant experience. The nearest equivalent under Linux is very hard to find. There is another bitmap editor called Krita (KDE based) but I found that very buggy. My ideal (which I know probably won't happen) would be for Corel to port PSP to Linux! A replacement for Fireworks was a different matter. Inkscape comes so very close, though it's lacking some things that prevent me from adopting it yet as a replacement. It only exports to PNG format (still like to export to JPEG); doesn't have proper styles management (one has to copy those from other objects rather than a saved list) and limited text functions (no spell checking - I'm a terrible speller). Still, I found that what I could do in Fireworks I could mostly do in Inkscape. Compare http://www.flickr.com/photos/7895693@N03/3926966597/ to http://www.flickr.com/photos/7895693@N03/3927748864/ . Strangely enough I also tried a free version of MS Expressions (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/7895693@N03/3927749080/) but seemed extremely tedious to do the same things in it as I could do in FW and IS. In Linux there may be two other alternatives though - see http://osrevolution.com/os-misc/top-3-linux-vector-graphics-editors for Karbon14 and Xara Xtreme. I think though that I will continue to come back to Inkscape. It has an active community and is still developing. I've already suggested scripts and styles managers and maybe they'll be added some time in the future. I made a couple of suggestions for GIMP at the GIMP UI Brainstorm. There's even a suggestion there to integrate Inkscape with GIMP - see http://gimp-brainstorm.blogspot.com/. Now that would be interesting! Apart from graphics editors, the other Comics software I'm interested in is script and story writing applications (helpful with graphic novels). For plots I found http://storybook.intertec.ch/joomla/ and for scripts (almost open source) I found http://celtix.ow2.org/. Both though have limitations, and StoryBook could do with a lot more development. I share your frustration. While I still use Windows, I have been for a long time searching for decent Linux replacements for the apps I use to make comics with under XP.

I use Paint Shop Pro and Fireworks to my comics. PSP is primarily poor person’s Photoshop with some vector and natural media capability - I have a lot of experience using it (and in fact recently upgraded to X2) and like many of the features it has. However, I use an old version of Fireworks MX 2004 to do the finishing touches mainly because it has better export settings and superior vector ability (it’s mainly a vector editor with some bitmap capability meant for creating web pages). Adding text and balloons, and creating reusable styles is very easy to do.

Looking at replacements, I was pretty disappointed with GIMP which seemed hard to use and had a “clunky UI”. It works and no doubt works well (I use it to apply GIMP filters on bitmaps), but learning to use GIMP isn’t a pleasant experience. The nearest equivalent under Linux is very hard to find. There is another bitmap editor called Krita (KDE based) but I found that very buggy. My ideal (which I know probably won’t happen) would be for Corel to port PSP to Linux!

A replacement for Fireworks was a different matter. Inkscape comes so very close, though it’s lacking some things that prevent me from adopting it yet as a replacement. It only exports to PNG format (still like to export to JPEG); doesn’t have proper styles management (one has to copy those from other objects rather than a saved list) and limited text functions (no spell checking - I’m a terrible speller). Still, I found that what I could do in Fireworks I could mostly do in Inkscape. Compare http://www.flickr.com/photos/7895693@N03/3926966597/ to http://www.flickr.com/photos/7895693@N03/3927748864/ . Strangely enough I also tried a free version of MS Expressions (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/7895693@N03/3927749080/) but seemed extremely tedious to do the same things in it as I could do in FW and IS. In Linux there may be two other alternatives though - see http://osrevolution.com/os-misc/top-3-linux-vector-graphics-editors for Karbon14 and Xara Xtreme.

I think though that I will continue to come back to Inkscape. It has an active community and is still developing. I’ve already suggested scripts and styles managers and maybe they’ll be added some time in the future. I made a couple of suggestions for GIMP at the GIMP UI Brainstorm. There’s even a suggestion there to integrate Inkscape with GIMP - see http://gimp-brainstorm.blogspot.com/. Now that would be interesting!

Apart from graphics editors, the other Comics software I’m interested in is script and story writing applications (helpful with graphic novels). For plots I found http://storybook.intertec.ch/joomla/ and for scripts (almost open source) I found http://celtix.ow2.org/. Both though have limitations, and StoryBook could do with a lot more development.

]]> By: Chris http://thepinksylphide.com/2008/11/16/on-the-lack-of-open-source-comic-software/comment-page-1#comment-10055 Chris Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:40:41 +0000 http://thepinksylphide.com/?p=435#comment-10055 I wish I could say I found something, but I never did. Inkscape works, but it's a vector program, not a comic software, so it's very cumbersome to use to make comics with. I wish I could say I found something, but I never did. Inkscape works, but it’s a vector program, not a comic software, so it’s very cumbersome to use to make comics with.

]]> By: Rob http://thepinksylphide.com/2008/11/16/on-the-lack-of-open-source-comic-software/comment-page-1#comment-10047 Rob Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:33:16 +0000 http://thepinksylphide.com/?p=435#comment-10047 Hi, Did you ever find any simple to use comic making software for Linux? I'm a primary (elementary) school teacher in a school that uses Linux and I'm trying to find easy to use comic book software for the kids to use, I know they'd love it. Rob Hi,
Did you ever find any simple to use comic making software for Linux? I’m a primary (elementary) school teacher in a school that uses Linux and I’m trying to find easy to use comic book software for the kids to use, I know they’d love it.
Rob

]]> By: Chris http://thepinksylphide.com/2008/11/16/on-the-lack-of-open-source-comic-software/comment-page-1#comment-6424 Chris Wed, 27 May 2009 23:26:38 +0000 http://thepinksylphide.com/?p=435#comment-6424 Thanks for the link, Matt. I have seen that script before, but I haven't tried it. My guess is it makes a bitmap balloons, rather than a vector (this is Gimp after all). These days I'm happy <a href="/2008/11/21/inkscape-web-comic-tutorial-the-speech-balloon" rel="nofollow">using Inkscape</a> for the balloon process, as well as the entire process from start to stop. I like working with vectors for something like this, although Gimp sees a lot of use by me for other works. Thanks for the link, Matt. I have seen that script before, but I haven’t tried it. My guess is it makes a bitmap balloons, rather than a vector (this is Gimp after all). These days I’m happy using Inkscape for the balloon process, as well as the entire process from start to stop. I like working with vectors for something like this, although Gimp sees a lot of use by me for other works.

]]> By: Matt Perry http://thepinksylphide.com/2008/11/16/on-the-lack-of-open-source-comic-software/comment-page-1#comment-6415 Matt Perry Wed, 27 May 2009 20:42:23 +0000 http://thepinksylphide.com/?p=435#comment-6415 I know that this post is a few months old upon my finding it just today, however I wanted to point out a gimp script I found. http://www.technoidone.de/stuff/balloon.scm perhaps this might speed up your thought/speech bubble creation I know that this post is a few months old upon my finding it just today, however I wanted to point out a gimp script I found.

http://www.technoidone.de/stuff/balloon.scm

perhaps this might speed up your thought/speech bubble creation

]]> By: Chris http://thepinksylphide.com/2008/11/16/on-the-lack-of-open-source-comic-software/comment-page-1#comment-2062 Chris Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:58:41 +0000 http://thepinksylphide.com/?p=435#comment-2062 I've used Inkscape and Sodipodi for attempts at comic-making, but neither is really up to the task <em>as far as I can tell</em>. If there's some way to mask SVGs that I don't know about, and an easy way to drop images on the same layer (or in the same layer folder) in one of these programs, then that would definitely be a jump in the right direction. I don't know if either of these programs has any sort of scripting engine that would ease things. I have read that Greg Dean uses Illustrator (I'm a daily reader of Real Life), and I do wonder how he does the speech balloons. If there were any "easy" (relatively) way to do such comics in Inkscape or another open source program, then it'd be very much worthwhile for someone to put together some tutorials and resources. I’ve used Inkscape and Sodipodi for attempts at comic-making, but neither is really up to the task as far as I can tell. If there’s some way to mask SVGs that I don’t know about, and an easy way to drop images on the same layer (or in the same layer folder) in one of these programs, then that would definitely be a jump in the right direction. I don’t know if either of these programs has any sort of scripting engine that would ease things.

I have read that Greg Dean uses Illustrator (I’m a daily reader of Real Life), and I do wonder how he does the speech balloons. If there were any “easy” (relatively) way to do such comics in Inkscape or another open source program, then it’d be very much worthwhile for someone to put together some tutorials and resources.

]]> By: Pete Zaitcev http://thepinksylphide.com/2008/11/16/on-the-lack-of-open-source-comic-software/comment-page-1#comment-2058 Pete Zaitcev Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:52:18 +0000 http://thepinksylphide.com/?p=435#comment-2058 Maybe you can just use Inkscape... You know, like Greg Dean uses Illustrator to make Real Life. Maybe you can just use Inkscape… You know, like Greg Dean uses Illustrator to make Real Life.

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