Help me spur my laptop into better PhotoShoppery!

September 19, 2007 7:48 AM

I have a lengthy question about comic-making, PhotoShop, and aging computers.

So, I make webcomics, and much of the crucial work (coloring, lettering) is done on a very old version of PhotoShop on my aging Toshiba laptop. Specifically, it's PhotoShop 5, and I've stuck with the geriatric version because a) it has to this point done everything I've needed it to, b) I've assumed that an older version would consume less RAM on a laptop that's starting to get creaky, and c) I own, so it's free.

This has worked well in the past, but my newest project involves very long comic pages with lots of dialog, meaning lots of layers of lettering. For the past two comics I've worked on, I've hit a problem- when I'm lettering the comic (this is the last stage, done after coloring), PhotoShop will eventually stop displaying the layers containing new lettering. This morning, I was brought to a standstill by this; worse, even if I copied the .PSD file, flattened it, and tried to put some of the new lettering over this new, flattened file, it won't display.

I've also run into problems at the end, trying to save the .PSD file as a .JPG. Photoshop gives me an "unknown error" if I use the "Save for Web" option; I've made it work by just saving the file as a .JPG, but that results in some pretty enormous files.

So I'm pretty sure I'm hitting the limits of either this version of PhotoShop or the available RAM on my laptop (512 MB, running XP). This sucks, because it's holding up work on a project I'm very excited about. I'm not sure if I should:

1. Get a newer version of PhotoShop
2. Get more RAM for the laptop
3. 1 and 2
4. Look for some alternative to PhotoShop
5. Find some other way to do my lettering
(getting a new laptop would work, too, but that can't happen until at least next spring)

I'd really, really appreciate any thoughts or suggestions anyone would have.

posted by COBRA! to computers & internet (23 comments total)

Hmm, a newer version of photoshop might help. I used to run Photoshop 7.0 on a computer with XP and 256 Megs of ram. It was laggy, but it worked. I think the max I had was ... 30 layers? I don't remember ever using more, though I continually merge and flatten as I go along. 512 should really be enough to run Photoshop reasonably; how much is 'lots of layers of lettering'?

And what's your processor like?
posted by Phire at 7:55 AM on September 19, 2007

Looking at the last comic I was actually able to finish, it looks like I'm flirting with 30 layers (one BW background, one color, and then one layer for each speech bubble or caption). Although the one that was giving me hell this morning had fewer than 30 layers, I'm positive.

I can't remember the exact processor speed (I'll check when i go home for lunch), but it's a celeron in the 2 Ghz range.
posted by COBRA! at 8:12 AM on September 19, 2007

Do you have Illustrator? It's far easier to do the lettering (and you can use speech bubble templates easily).

You might also want to save things as flattened drafts, then work over them.
posted by klangklangston at 8:28 AM on September 19, 2007

I'd try upgrading to Photoshop 7 and see if that solves the problems you're having. Photoshop 7 should run fine on a machine with those specs. I'd also run a spyware scan or 2 and make sure that you aren't having any problems on that front, because with 512 megs of ram you can't afford to have any extra processes sucking up ram.
posted by meta87 at 8:29 AM on September 19, 2007

More RAM, though I'm not sure how difficult it is to add RAM to a laptop. I'm surprised you can run XP and PS at all on 512. I've got 624 mb on my 2.1 Ghz Pentium M laptop and Photoshop CS2 often laughs at me.

Also, if PS 5 is getting buggy, maybe a reinstall?
posted by desjardins at 8:30 AM on September 19, 2007

Do you have Illustrator? It's far easier to do the lettering (and you can use speech bubble templates easily).

I don't have Illustrator, and actually haven't used it. How would it make lettering easier? I'm definitely interested.

More RAM, though I'm not sure how difficult it is to add RAM to a laptop. I'm surprised you can run XP and PS at all on 512.

That's why I've been sticking with a Clinton-era version of PhotoShop... It's not hard to add RAM to this laptop; I've done it before.
posted by COBRA! at 8:38 AM on September 19, 2007

How much empty disk space do you have? Photoshop running on very little RAM needs even more for scratch files. If the disk is severely fragmented that will make it even worse.
posted by doctor_negative at 8:50 AM on September 19, 2007

Not a lot of empty disk space... 3-4 GB.
posted by COBRA! at 8:54 AM on September 19, 2007

Run ccleaner and a defrag.
posted by desjardins at 9:04 AM on September 19, 2007

"I don't have Illustrator, and actually haven't used it. How would it make lettering easier? I'm definitely interested."

The way Scott McCloud showed our class was to create a separate document with a bunch of bubble vector paths, and a bunch of vector "tails," so that you can just copy 'em then drop 'em. By setting the border of the bubble to automerge with the tail, you can create pretty much any text bubble from stock pretty quickly. Since they're vector, they scale too. (I'd bet someone else could explain this all more elegantly than I have here, because I'm better at doing it than talking about it).

I've also always found Illustrator's text tools to be more intuitive and more effective than Photoshop's, though they've been getting closer to equal with the last couple of releases.

As a side note, old copies of Illustrator (since I don't believe Adobe sells 'em anymore) are widely available through torrents. Of course, that means you have to be willing to install a program that you got as a likely-illegal torrent, but we all make these decisions on our own.
posted by klangklangston at 9:43 AM on September 19, 2007

You can also try Inkscape. It's a free vector program that has made a lot of strides lately. If you can get your hands on Illustrator, though, it would do the trick very nicely.
posted by azpenguin at 9:53 AM on September 19, 2007

Are you doing your comics all as one huge file? Can't you do each panel separately? Then you could flatten each one, save it as a separate file, and put them all together in one huge file as the final step.
posted by MegoSteve at 10:09 AM on September 19, 2007

Are you doing your comics all as one huge file? Can't you do each panel separately? Then you could flatten each one, save it as a separate file, and put them all together in one huge file as the final step.

That's a possibility, but it's a pretty extreme last resort; it's important to be able to see how everything looks together, especially with the coloring step that comes just before the lettering.

Currently running CCleaner, and will start a defrag when I head back to work... and in the medium term, I might start looking at Illustrator.
posted by COBRA! at 10:50 AM on September 19, 2007

More RAM, definitely.
Do you happen to have an external drive you can hook to your laptop?

Photoshop (like Illustrator) makes copious use of scratch space. Without a separate hard drive to use, it will use the home drive as it's scratch disc. This can lead to some real problems as a) file size grows, and b) disc space shrinks. This can especially be a big problem when working from older laptops.

While a new copy of Photoshop would be nice, I don't see the age of your copy as the problem. It really sounds like memory/disc-useage issues.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:54 AM on September 19, 2007

I would go with option 5: hand-letter. Print out the comic, lay a thin sheet of white paper over it so you can see where the lettering should go, write onto that white sheet, then scan it in.

This, of course, assumes you have a printer and scanner.
posted by Greg Nog at 11:11 AM on September 19, 2007

Do you happen to have an external drive you can hook to your laptop?

I've thought about getting one, and this might put me over the edge on that.


I would go with option 5: hand-letter. Print out the comic, lay a thin sheet of white paper over it so you can see where the lettering should go, write onto that white sheet, then scan it in.

I've tried hand-lettering before, and it just doesn't work for me. My writing, even when I'm being slow and cautious and using an Ames Lettering Guide, is just too shitty.
posted by COBRA! at 11:22 AM on September 19, 2007

Oh, bonus question: are any of the open-source Illustrator alternatives any good? Would that be a route worth looking into?
posted by COBRA! at 11:24 AM on September 19, 2007

My writing, even when I'm being slow and cautious and using an Ames Lettering Guide, is just too shitty.

Honestly, I don't want to sound like a one-note ass here, but I really, really think hand-lettering is the way to go; even shitty hand-lettering is usually a lot easier on my eyes than the same computer-generated letter-shapes over and over again.

The thing that irritates me most about computerized lettering is the way it feels completely separate from the art, like a tacked-on afterthought rather than the comic working with a unified aesthetic. The only time I tend to like machine-generated letters are when they accompany machine-generated artwork, like in, say, Get Your War On or Diesel Sweeties or some such.

As far as feeling like it's not good enough, practice! You can do it! You can get better! It takes a little bit of time, sure, but that's craft for you.

I dunno, I'm willing to concede that this is just my own personal windmill to tilt at, but I really really hate the prevalence of heartless machine-lettering in what can otherwise be such a soulful and deeply human art form.
posted by Greg Nog at 11:59 AM on September 19, 2007

(Not to harp endlessly on McCloud's advice, but when he was asked what the most obvious mistake an amateur could make, his response was "Hand letter." Unless you're amazing, lettering is so much harder by hand.)

And to hop on Cobra!'s bonus: Any open-source Illustrator alternatives that are good and run on OSX? Because I'd love something that ran with a smaller footprint, and I don't need everything that Illustrator provides most of the time (though it is so much better for lettering—I just can't run both Adobe products at once without massive slowdown).
posted by klangklangston at 12:00 PM on September 19, 2007

Re: Hand lettering...
Unless you are really, really, really good and steady with either a pen or brush, I would advise you not to hand letter an entire strip.
I say this as a veteran of a cartoon studio. It takes some serious talent to be able to consistently letter a simple three-panel strip, let alone a longer web-comic.

There are many serviceable fonts out there that will work just fine.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:08 PM on September 19, 2007

If you can run 5 you can run 7. Get a used copy of 7 for a song and it give it another try. Or break up your work by pages and then recombine them after flattening. Sounds like youre hitting a RAM/swap page wall. Have you tried increasing your swap file size?
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:30 PM on September 19, 2007

Have you tried increasing your swap file size?

No, but I'll add that to the list of stuff to do.
posted by COBRA! at 2:20 PM on September 19, 2007

For posterity, I spent a few hours last night messing with Inkscape, an open-source Illustrator clone. While I don't know enough about Illustrator to talk about how well it stacks up to the original, it looks like it'll get the job done for me.

And Klang, it at least claims to run well on OSX; whether or not it actually does, I can't say.
posted by COBRA! at 7:00 AM on September 20, 2007