Newbie — thought bubble from Office

MK
Posted By
Mitchell_Kaplan
Apr 28, 2007
Views
629
Replies
13
Status
Closed
Hi,

Can anyone walk me through the steps I would need to do this: In Office, Powerpoint for example, I can draw a callout, a mouth bubble etc. I’d like to copy and paste it on some photos in CS2.

If there’s already something in CS2 that does that, that would be even better – of course.

I have a few problems. First, I can’t seem to directly cut and paste it. So I copied it, pasted it into Paint, saved it as a GIF and opened that in CS2. I can then copy and paste it on my photo.

Now the problem is that it’s a bubble surrounded by a white square. I want to make the background transparent and just have the bubble with text in it.

Could someone help me get started with doing this?

Thanks!
Related Tags
bubble newbie

How to Improve Photoshop Performance

Learn how to optimize Photoshop for maximum speed, troubleshoot common issues, and keep your projects organized so that you can work faster than ever before!

DM
dave_milbut
Apr 29, 2007
try this:

* type some text. get it set the way you want.
* new layer. place it UNDER the text layer. (select the new layer in the layers palette. drag it under the text layer. then select the new layer by clicking on it.)
* crtl-click the text layer on the big letter "T" to select the outline of the text. * expand the selection a few times until all the text is inside a "bubble" of marching ants (selection). (Select> Modify> Expand… # pixels. repeat at incriments of a couple px per try until all text is inside the bubble.)
* select the eliptical marquee tool for thought bubbles, or polygon lasso tool for a "talking pointy" bubble. hold the SHIFT key to add to the selection already on the new empty layer and draw your thought bubbles (or speaking pointer). the ALT key can be used to undo any mistakes in the selection process. (Shift adds to a selection, Alt subtracts from a selection.)
* once you have it the way you want, stroke the selection in black for a pixel or 2. (Edit> Stroke).
* select the paint bucket tool and fill the inside of the bubble with white. no you have black text in a white bubble.

you now have an outline. you can start to play with it. one way i like to finish it off is like this:

on you bubble layer, add a drop shadow of about 75%. and on the text layer add a drop shadow of about 30%.

hth, good luck, dave

< http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1hThFC9Vu2bgwwp8cq S143OyNiTVV1>
JJ
John Joslin
Apr 29, 2007
Quick and dirty method.

Select Custom Shape tool.

In the drop-down there is a basic talk bubble*.

Draw the bubble with the Shape layer option.

Use Ctrl+T to transform and position it.

Type the text and position it in the bubble.

Bingo!

*You can load a whole bunch more from the fly-out menu!
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 29, 2007
cool. i’ll have to check that out john. i’ve been doing it my way for so long it’s automatic. the way the ‘expand selection’ step customizes the bubble to the text works really well. i doubt the custom shape tool will do better, but i’ll definitely check it. thanks!
JJ
John Joslin
Apr 29, 2007
Dave, your method gives a more tailored bubble.

Mine is just quick.

By the way, don’t forget the scrubby sliders on the font size.

Just gotta love scrubby sliders!
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 29, 2007
ya, i use the scrubbys everywhere i can! (they’re almost eveywhere.) at 1280×1024 i can hardly see the numbers as it is.

(well, for me it’s small, i realize lots are working at 1600×1200 or better <shudder>)
MK
Mitchell_Kaplan
Apr 30, 2007
John,

I tried your method first, since it was easier. Worked like a charm! I guess I’m not surprised that this stuff is already in CS2 — but I just had no idea. Thanks very much.
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 30, 2007
<sigh> 🙂
MK
Mitchell_Kaplan
Apr 30, 2007
Dave,

Thanks so much. I tried John’s quick method first. Now I’ve got to do something else, but I’ll try your suggestion next. Since I’ve got a long way to go to learn enough to use this product I’ll try everything I can.

Thanks very much!
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 30, 2007
you’re welcome mitchell. 🙂
MK
Mitchell_Kaplan
Apr 30, 2007
Dave,

Ok, I finally had a few minutes to try your suggestion. By the way, great instructions — considering I’m new to this. Not too long, but also not missing anything (that I know of).

I do have a question, and it may mean that I did miss something. What did expanding the selection do (so that the text was inside the marching ants)?

I tried it again without doing that and wound up with the same result, so I’m guessing I missed something.

Thanks again for your help.
MK
Mitchell_Kaplan
Apr 30, 2007
New but related question, if I’m permitted…

The text comes out sketchy, like I’m writing with a pen running out of ink. The text size is 30pt. I’m using Garamond (no particular reason for the type face). The 30 points is needed probably because of the size of the photo I’m working with. If I use a more normal size, the text is microscopic.

I’m not bolding or italicizing the text. Is this normal? I haven’t yet printed it, so I don’t know if comes out better on paper.
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Apr 30, 2007
A couple of questions: What is the resolution of your image in ppi? And are you viewing it at 100% zoom? The reason these questions are important is because everything in a raster graphic file ultimately gets changed to pixels.

A 30 point font makes sense only in terms of inches, because 72 pt = 1 inch. If your resolution is 300 ppi, then a 30 pt font is 30/72 in * 300 ppi = 125 px. That should look great. If your resolution is 72 ppi, then your 30 pt font will only be 30 px high, which will look much less good. Bear in mind that the font height includes ascenders and descenders, so the x-height will be somewhere around 1/3 of that, leaving about 10 px for the height of a lowercase letter.

I ask about the zoom level, because even if your letters are perfectly formed and clear, if you are looking at them at zoomed-out resolution, each pixel of the screen must represent some sort of average of multiple image pixels, which results in fine detail being lost on the screen. View the image at 100% and each pixel of the image will be a pixel on the screen, and you can see what your image really contains.
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 30, 2007
What did expanding the selection do (so that the text was inside the marching ants)?

expanding the selection turns it from just a disjointed selection of the letters in the text to an actual bubble around all the text. you need to keep expanding until all the spots between letters fill in.

(click this image…)

< http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1jthBDynlYtvRuNMsv hQnTk8EGdv1>

The text comes out sketchy, like I’m writing with a pen running out of ink. The text size is 30pt. I’m using Garamond (no particular reason for the type face). The 30 points is needed probably because of the size of the photo I’m working with. If I use a more normal size, the text is microscopic.

really unrelated to the bubbles. when working with text. make sure to set the image resolution to at least 300ppi when you create it. otherwise when you rasterize (save as jpg or some other raster format) the text will look like… doo doo. 🙂

and as mike says, you gotta be viewing at 100% to get an accurate representation. other than that and photoshop is giving you an estimate (and it’s not always that accurate).

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections