Software for Storyboards and Visualisation Diagrams

A storyboard is a sequence of sketched frames showing what happens shot by shot. You can make one by hand, often on a printed template of empty frames, or digitally on a computer or tablet by drawing with a graphics tablet and stylus, or with a touchscreen (often with a stylus).

You do not need special software to make a storyboard digitally. Presentation software works well because each slide can hold one frame and the slides are already in order. Image editing software and desktop publishing (DTP) software can also be used, while a dedicated storyboard application is built only for storyboarding and may add extra tools.

Storyboarding software features

Useful features save time and keep frames consistent:

• Layout tools and drawing and aligning boxes to build frames and line them up tidily.
• Inserting assets and images, such as character drawings or photographs.
• Sketching directly in the software, plus adding text, annotation and scene information such as shot type or camera movement.
• Copying and pasting backgrounds and objects, then resizing and reordering frames when the order changes.

For example, in a storyboard for a 30-second advert about a rescue dog, you could paste the same kennel background into six frames, change only the dog's position, then drag frame five before frame four.

Visualisation diagrams

A visualisation diagram is a rough plan of what a finished product will look like, such as a recipe booklet cover. You can create one with image editing software, presentation software or DTP software. Professional designers often favour desktop publishing or image editing tools for this work because they offer stronger design controls, including accurate positioning of text and pictures.

In image editing software, you can insert photographs and images directly from image libraries into a digital diagram. A digital diagram is easier to edit, move items around in, and share than a physical diagram, which must be digitised first.