Calvin’s Hub

If you want to put speech bubbles on your image similar to what you see in comics, Adobe Fireworks is a great tool which can accomplish that quite easily.

Fireworks has what they call Auto Shapes (started with MX 2004) that features control points for you to tweak to change various parameters of the shape.

To better visualize what Auto Shapes is all about, read on this guide on how to create speech bubbles. I’m using Adobe Fireworks CS3 by the way.

1. First, let’s get our image in the canvas. I’m using a shot of Hulk by a friend of mine, Troy Samia.

2. Go to Window and make sure that Auto Shapes is visible.

3. Look for the Assets pane on your right, select Shapes and find the “Talking” shape. There’s also a “Thinking” shape if you want that instead.

4. Drag that “Talking” shape into your canvas.

5. You will see yellow points which you can drag to adjust the look of your shape. Play around with those points until you get the desired output. Go ahead and adjust the size as well by using the Scale Tool (Q).

6. When you’re satisfied, type in your text using your favorite font. I used a free font called Laffayette Comic Pro that I got from DaFont.

OPTIONAL: You will notice that your speech bubble has a drop shadow. To remove it, simply click your speech bubble and go to Modify > Ungroup (Ctrl-Shift-G). Then delete the Drop Shadow effect from the Filters.

That’s it. That’s how easy it is to create speech bubbles using Adobe Fireworks.

• How to Create Sunbursts Using Fireworks
• How to create the sticker peel effect in Fireworks
• How to create flowchart arrows in Fireworks
• How to put an image inside a text in Fireworks

Filed under: Fireworks Tutorials