Typesetters! What's your poison?

[Shaphina]

(I hope this is allowed here. Sorry if its not. Also sorry if my title isn't suitable for some reason.)

Hello all you typesetters, and anyone else who wants to know what my topic is. What I am curious about is how other typesetters are working and such. What program do you edit with and such.

I personally use Gimp, a bamboo tablet, and duel monitors. Got the tablet some years ago, along with downloading Gimp, so I've gotten quite comfortable with them.

How many others out there go with Gimp? Or is Photoshop the most used?

Basically I want to know what others are using out of curiosity but this can also be a place for sharing any tips ans tricks you're willing to let go of.

The only sort of trick I can think of to share at this time is my list of DMG provided fonts.
http://www.mediafire.com/i/?bo26aa9ey993iir
Gimp has a horrible text function in terms of finding fonts in my opinion so I made this list so I could easily see what font I might want.

Edit: This is my new Font list.
http://www.mediafire.com/i/?bo26aa9ey993iir
Here is what changed:
1) MOST IMPORTANT CHANGE! I changed the 'Ii' to be "Ii|1" because I find some fonts need to use the "|" or "1" for the i. (I use 1 for brushcut, I'm not crazy) The | is Shift+\ if you don't know.
2) It is neater. You may not notice but I lined up the old one by eye, this one had lines. It makes me happy.
3) I changed the line "THE FOX JUMPED OVER THE DOG." to "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."
This new line is longer with all the letters in the alphabet and is also lowercase(except the T). Some fonts look uppercase either way while others have upper and lowercase letters. There are a few fonts that look like different styles when upper and lower so I split them. One line all lower, one all caps. They are labeled, don't worry. (The Caps thing was a second thought so not all fonts that probably should/could have them do.)

Tips & Tricks: These are things posted by members, just putting them together.

nothing fancy, I just be sure to arrange my workspace so that the tools I use most are in easy reach. I've also gotten a lot quicker with keyboard shortcuts, too. Learn them, and you will be so much happier, you have no idea...

Also, I suggest getting a font manager. I have a Mac, and I love Font Doc. It imports your collections from Font Book and then displays the fonts in a list. You can enter custom text for the display, which makes it a lot easier to find a good font for your title page Someone once recommended AMP Font Viewer for Windows, but I never tried it.

Pen tool tutorials: http://senbonzakura.kageyoshi.net/category/pen-tool/
I love the pen tool. You will too once you get the hang of it! For me, it's essential for redraws.

Also, you guys NEED to get a font manager. Maybe try Font Xplorer, though it doesnt support post script fonts: http://www.moonsoftware.com/fxplorer.asp
The "user text compare" feature is KEY.

[Russesa]

Oh my. Thank you for that comparison image. Especially for the I's. That's going to cut down on an awful lot of scrolling through my needlessly massive font collection.

I'm using Photoshop CS4, a Wacom for the occasional redraw, and only one monitor, but it's 1680x1050. Nice and wide, but I have a hard time finding good wallpapers that fit.

Tips and tricks...nothing fancy, I just be sure to arrange my workspace so that the tools I use most are in easy reach. I've also gotten a lot quicker with keyboard shortcuts, too. Learn them, and you will be so much happier, you have no idea...

[chirechan]

I've always *wanted* to use Gimp because I like the idea of open source software, but every time I try switching from PS I get frustrated. The shortcuts are different, I can't push the image around with the space bar, and my workflow in general screeches to a halt. I wish I had gone with Gimp in the first place like you!

DMG supplied a good assortment of fonts, and I've found a suitable one for nearly all situations, but I do miss a lot of Blambot fonts. Maybe we could start a poll for our most desired font licenses and then ask for them for Christmas XD

Also, I suggest getting a font manager. I have a Mac, and I love Font Doc. It imports your collections from Font Book and then displays the fonts in a list. You can enter custom text for the display, which makes it a lot easier to find a good font for your title page Someone once recommended AMP Font Viewer for Windows, but I never tried it.

As for my setup, I'm a snot and can't typeset without two monitors - one for the script, one for PS, and I have a Graphire 4 that I love dearly.

[hanged_man]

I may be alone in this, but I like using PaintTool SAI for anything graphic and then PS for the actual typesetting. It seems recursive, but it's nice to have an artsy-friendly program for things like redrawing, and then a somewhat more technical one for messing with the fonts and what-have-you. I like Gimp, but hadn't thought about using it for lettering...dunno why. Although I'm working with only one monitor, Intuous tablet is the way to go.

I also think we should poll for popular fonts we want and then ask DMG nicely. Any suggestions to start with?

@Shaphina
This image comparison really is great. I'm making a running least of DMG related resources on my blog...would you mind if I posted a link to it?

[Shaphina]

Happened to be on so replying now.

Th only art programs I've used are Gimp, Adobe PS and MS Paint. I actually hated using PS, probably because I only used it at school and I've been using Gimp for years. My only problem is there is a very limited about of extras I can find around for gimp. (Fan made brushes and such)

Yay tablets! I am really curious if anyone uses a mouse, no tablet at all.

@hanged_man
You can defiantly do so. Always happy if someone can find it useful. Just a note, I plan to change it a bit, add in '|' with the 'i's. (When I have time, so probably not for a bit.)

As for the poll, I didn't use the font setting before becoming a typesetter so I don't know of any fonts I would like but I do like that idea. Also, if more fonts become available for use then keep me updated, I'll update the list when ever that happens.

[ZepysGirl]

I use Photoshop CS4. That and Photoshop 7 are the only programs I've ever typeset in, and they work for me, so I've never really felt the need to explore more options. I have a tablet, but I don't use it for typesetting. In fact, I hardly use it at all! XD I really should get more familiar with it--- I used tablets all the time back in high school, but it's been years since then and I've fallen out of practice. And one of these days I will look up a tutorial on the Pen tool and figure that out, but until that day I just clone-tool like crazy! So, yeah, guess I'm one of those weirdos who only use a mouse.

I am jealous of those with two monitors, though. I had two at one point, but sadly I am down to one again. T_T It's hard to go back to half the space.

As far as the fonts go, I made a Word document that has the words "This is a typeface" in each of the various fonts we're allowed to use, so whenever I need to decide on a font, I just double check that.

I would like more fonts, if only so that I don't have to keep modifying the ones I already use. For example: Anime Ace, my body text of choice, apparently doesn't think em-dashes are worth its time. ^_^; Neither are special characters like ō. When I chose it, my main concern was that it had normal/italics/bold options, but now that I've lettered a few books with it, I'm wishing I had found one with bold-italics too...

[VenusMizu24]

I use my graphic design standard, Photoshop CS5. I have Illustrator CS5, but I get frustrated trying to use a new image editing program. I also use my Bamboo tablet for the occasional art editing jobs that I can't do with just my mouse method of copying and pasting similar layers all over the place.

[Shroud]

I use trusty old Photoshop 7 and Manga Studio 4.

[chirechan]

Pen tool tutorials: http://senbonzakura.kageyoshi.net/category/pen-tool/
I love the pen tool. You will too once you get the hang of it! For me, it's essential for redraws.

Also, you guys NEED to get a font manager. Maybe try Font Xplorer, though it doesnt support post script fonts: http://www.moonsoftware.com/fxplorer.asp
The "user text compare" feature is KEY.

[HiroPon]

Dear Chirechan,

Thanks for sharing all this helpful information!