Single Panel Template
In this cartoon tutorial, I'll take you through the steps of making a single panel template in Photoshop for your gag cartoons, which will include your cartoon's name, number (or date), and your copyright information (your name).
By making a template for your gag cartoons, you'll be saving a lot of time further down the road. Once you have a template made, you can just pop in your scanned cartoon, scale it down to fit the panel, and change the date, and save.
First, begin with a sketch of how you want the template to be laid out.
I decided to have a title and cartoon number on the top and copyright information on the bottom. The cartoon number is just for reference; you can use a date if you wish.
Dimensions:
The single panel cartoon template I'll be making for the sake of this tutorial will be for a 4"x4" gag cartoon.
I will also have a 0.25" title and cartoon number, 0.125" copyright, and 0.125" spacing all around.
Do the math and it adds up to 4.25"x4.875". This isn't a standard size by any means. I'm just using it for this tutorial.
Making the Single Panel:
1. After you opened a new image with the proper dimensions, display the canvas rulers by hitting Ctrl+R. If the rulers aren't already in inch units, right click on the ruler and select "inches."
2. We'll make guidelines to make sure all our elements are properly laid out. Using the Move Tool (press V), click on the vertical ruler and drag onto the image to pull out a guideline. Release when you get to the measurement you need, and repeat until you have all the elements laid out:
3. Now we'll make the single panel for your gag cartoon. Press M to select the Rectangular Marquee Tool, and then press Ctrl+Shift+; to turn on snapping. Select the area for your gag cartoon (it should be easy since the selection will now snap to your guidelines).
4. Go to Edit > Stroke to open the stroke options. Select any width you want for the border (I used 2px for this template), "inside" for location, and a black color. Click "OK."
If you want to turn the guidelines off temporarily so you can see the template better, press Ctrl+H. Then press Ctrl+H again to bring them back into view.
5. Press W to select the Magic Wand Tool, and click inside the single panel to get a selection.
6. Make a new layer by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N.
7. At the bottom of the layers window, press the third icon from the left to add a mask to that layer (it'll automatically make the mask based on your selection).
This mask will automatically crop sections of your gag cartoons that go beyond your panel, so you have less work to do in the future.
8. Click the small chain icon that appears right next to the mask layer. It should disappear after you click it. This enables you to move your gag cartoon (later on) all over the canvas without moving the mask.
Adding Text:
1. Write the title of your cartoon and snap it into place. Use a simple font like Arial (I'm using Helvetica for this tutorial). Don't use any fancy font that will take away attention from the cartoon itself.
2. Write the number of your cartoon and snap that into place as well. Like I previously mentioned, you can use a date if you want.
3. Write your copyright info. I included my name, the copyright symbol, and my website address. To get the copyright symbol, hold Alt while pressing 0-1-6-9 on the number pad.
I pulled out a guideline into the center of the image so that I can center the copyright info.
Now when you hide the guidelines, you have a finished single panel cartoon template.
Save it in .psd format, so you can use it over and over in the future.
Here's a look at how the layers are set up:
The "cartoon" layer (the layer with the mask) is where you'll be placing your scanned gag cartoon and let the mask automatically crop it. I stuck the panel and text layers into a folder to simplify things, since they won't need to be edited in the future.
Using the Template:
Using the template with your gag cartoons is simple. I'll use it with a sample cartoon illustration I drew (so there's no joke to it, unless you find soccer to be funny):
1. Open your scanned gag cartoon and drag it onto the template image.
2. It will automatically place it on a new layer, so press Ctrl+E to merge it down with the masked layer. When a dialog box appears, click on "preserve."
3. Go to Edit > Transform > Scale to scale down your gag cartoon to fit into the panel. Double-click to apply the transformation.
And you're done! Now you have a single panel template for all your gag cartoons, and when you print them or display them on the web, everyone will know who it's from.
