Photoshop Tutorial: Speech Bubbles

Posted by Richard on

Image © Richard D. LeCour

It’s about time I did another Photoshop tutorial. This time, I’ve jotted down instructions on how to create speech bubbles for comics.

  1. Set foreground color to black.
  2. With the text tool, type some text that you’d like to display in a bubble.
  3. Use the elliptical marquee tool to create a bubble around the text.
  4. While holding down the SHIFT key, create a second, overlapping bubble — optional.
  5. Select the polygonal lasso tool.
  6. Hold down the SHIFT key again.
  7. Starting inside the existing bubble, use the lasso tool and click three points to make a downward-pointing triangle. The second point should be below the bubble. The third point is back up inside the bubble.
  8. Click the first lasso point again to close the lasso. You should now have a selected marquee in the shape of a speech bubble. Oh, yeah, you can let go of the SHIFT key now.
  9. Create a new blank layer.
  10. If it’s not already there, move the blank layer below the text layer.
  11. Select the blank layer.
  12. Select the paint bucket tool.
  13. Fill in the bubble. Yes, it looks completely black!
  14. Go to Select > Modify > Contract and contract the selection by 2 pixels.
  15. Set foreground color to white.
  16. Fill in the bubble again. Voila!