4 - LABELLING

Title

Label Lines

Text Labels

Merge Down

That’s more or less the basics right there! Next it’s just labelling it all up! This is going to come down to personal taste and will also vary on the style you’re aiming for. If you’re doing it more as a technical drawing then straight lines and plain fonts are the way to go. If you’re doing it more like my previous ones as a sketch, then curved lines and hand written fonts are in order.To start with, use the text tool to make a main label. It will automatically put it on a new layer (make sure the layer is above the grids). In my case, I’ve been using Bradley Hand ITC which comes with windows. For the size, just make it look right and I have it set to bold. Position it wherever you want – the remaining stages really are up to you. The move tool can be used to drag it around (it can be fiddly to get the right piece moving, look for the change in mouse cursor).For the label lines, make a new layer above the grid called Lines. As before, make sure it’s the same size and set it to transparent. We can then use the Paths Tool to make our lines. This can be a little fiddly to understand so I recommend just playing with it.To start, use the tool and select two points at the start and end of the line. You can then drag the line to add curvature to it. If you find it become misshapen, you can use the boxes at the end of the yellow lines to adjust the angles. I recommend nice, shallow curves – keep it subtle like a human hand trying to freehand a straight line in one sweeping motion.For a more engineering diagram feel, keep them straight at 90° angles.Once you’re happy with the layout, make sure you have white selected as primary, click Stroke to Path and set it to 2px. Once you hit Stroke your new line will be in place. Click any other tool to deselect the current path and finish the process.Repeat for anything you want to mark (on the same layer).Finally, the text labels! Firstly create a new layer called Labels… usual size and transparent. Then using the text tool, begin your first label. Again font is personal preference but I’ve been using Mistral (another windows Default). At this stage make sure your text box is a fair bit bigger than the text itself or it can cause problems later when you rotate it.Once we’ve made our first label, click on the rotate tool and then on the hopefully still selected text. Use the angle slider bar to rotate the text a little. Don’t move it more than a couple of degrees; again it’s just supposed to look slightly hand drawn. There’s no hard and fast rule, just do what looks good.Once this is complete, move the text into place using the move tool or the circle shown in the middle when rotating.Finally, make sure the layer it has created is directly above our Labels layer, right click on the layer it has created and ‘’, adding it to the labels. You don’t have to do this but it’s going to start getting messy with every label on its own layer!