How hard would it

[Joeram57]

Dimitri,

I think you had a post about some freeware graphics SW you suggested. I'd like to try them out.

I have made some decals, helmet logo's, stripes w/Microsoft word, however, the player names come out very blurry, useless actually, as, I guess, it's not "vectorized" properly when shrunk down so much.

What would be a good free program to allow crisp small images for decals. I think it has some to with this vector thing.

Your thoughts??

Thanks,

Joe Ram

[the french guy]

It's curious the names came blurry...since you use a word processing software, the only things you should be sure to print correctly are the words and letters


What fonts did you use ? bitmap or vector (opentyp, truetype, etc...) ?


For the software, take a look on Inkscape ! really great vector software You'll find plenty of tutorials on internet, and even books in libraries.

For vectors graphics (logos for example) , you can find some here :

http://www.vectorportal.com/sportlog...TOKEN=12205123

You can also use the vectorization tool in the software, to transform bitmap (pixels) in vector graphics. It works pretty well, especially in small scale.


TO make stripes, and stuff like that, you'll have to draw it by yourself on INkscape. You'll see, vector design can look difficult "out of box", but just do some simple tutorials on internet, and it will be fine !



Be aware also that there exists a scale limit of what you can do with a personal printer and decals sheet, especially with inkjet ones. But using proper decal sheet, good printer settings and vectors, you should obtain decent enough results.

[Joeram57]

Yes, I am using a cheap Lexmark inkjet w/stock Microsoft 2003 word fonts...perhaps I'll see if I can get a cheap used color laser printer off ebay or pawn shop...

Thanks, I'll have to play around...years ago I had adobe photoshop and illustrator and it did seem a bit "challenging". I'll have to wait to when I have the proper mind set as my jobs in the computer and electrical engineering field over the past 30+ years have really made me kind of "tired" of troubleshooting and figuring things out on own...I guess I'm just getting old and "burnt" out

Sometimes I wish I could shut off my over active brain, 10,000 thoughts per/min

Thanks,

Joe Ram

[the french guy]

Graphics software are difficult to master, but quite easy for basic operations. You'll see that Inkscape, even it's free, stills a professionnal software


THe better way to learn them is to start with simple tutorials (internet, or books), then go deeper in the software when you'll be confident in the basics.


Last thing, for printing you have to setup right your graphics as I explained, but you have to setup right your printer too : high qualities settings will bring you more detail than draft settings, for example


HAve fun, and merry christmas

[the french guy]

Hi,

Today I made decals for my white jersey : just a few red numbers. I used Inkscape 0.47, some transparent paper decal for inkjet printer, and a cheap HP deskjet f2280 "all in one" as printing device.

I simply write numbers with the text tool, then resize them, and print some normal paper previews.


Once I was OK with the result, color and size, I made some "strips" (I'll make photos once it will be dry) of numbers to save paper space, and to be able to just cut the strip and reuse the decals paper after.


Then, I set up my printer :

"HP presentation gloss paper" setting
"optimal quality" setting

And...that 's all ! I printed the decals, and the results is just so professional If I was thinking it was so simple and good looking...I'd try it a way before !


Once the paper is dry, I coated it with acrylic mat varnish spray can. Beware, sometime the spray can burn the decals paper, but hopefully, I'm on a good day.


The result was soo good, I printed a little strip of helmet logos too (I founded some open source SVG format niners logo).

Now I believe I'll be able to complete teams painting very fast


TOnight I'll update my niners' topic. Feel free to ask anything. But be sure, it's quite simple, even for a beginner, to make at least his own jersey numbers !