The Letterville BullBoard: Any Programs coinciding with Paint Shop Pro?

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Posted by Brian Cornwell (Member # 2509) on :

Hi all,

I've been searching high and low and cannot seem to locate any information about creating graphics using Paint Shop Pro.

I'm not looking for the typical snobbish replies between PhotoShop and Illustrator and CorelDraw.

I'm wondering if there is any creation/cutting programs coinciding with the use of PaintShopPro.

If I can already operate in vectors and bmp's I don't see why I cannot adopt/adapt or find something that will work. I've got several gigabytes of graphics and clipart I've created over the past 6 years that would almost be a horror show to contemplate, never mind swapping over to Corel or the others.

Anybody seen anything I can use?

Thank you

Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :

PAINT SHOP PRO is just what it says it is... a paint shop not vector creartion/manipulation program. it will do the same stuff as adobe photo paint or corel photo.....you want to tray a great little vector program go to www.xara.com and d/l or get demo cd of the new XARA X....neat mini corel and got some neat stuff in it...i got it communicating with my roland.....but cant get it to go over 20" when it plots...

Posted by Doug Allan (Member # 2247) on :

I'm missing something here. you've created rastor image clip-art etc. in this program for 6 years & now you want to do what? cut it?

quote:
I'm wondering if there is any creation/cutting programs coinciding with the use of PaintShopPro.

I would guess if you already have vectors there would be some format to export that any cutting software could cut from. If you only have rastor images you could export to required file format to digitally print from. If you want to cut, & don't have vectors welcome to the "horror show...swapping" to vectors with something like Adobe Streamline.

Forgive me if I'm completely missunderstanding your question.

[ December 01, 2001: Message edited by: Doug Allan ]

Posted by Brian Cornwell (Member # 2509) on :

Doug: "I would guess if you already have vectors there would be some format to export that any cutting software could cut from. If you only have rastor images you could export to required file format to digitally print from. If you want to cut, & don't have vectors welcome to the "horror show...swapping" to vectors with something like Adobe Streamline.

Forgive me if I'm completely missunderstanding your question.

______________________________________

No Doug, You've pretty much pinpointed my dilemna. I can create/edit images in quite a few file formats. The problem I'm having revolves around the fact that I've never created computer graphics with the output being controlled by the programs I've found available on the market for the sign business; the plotters and the rest.

Exporting from one program to another seems to be the only solution as I cannot seem to find an all-in-one software program already in existance to plug into my PaintShopPro program.

As you can tell I'm very new to attempting to create with an output from a graphics program to a printer plot onto vinyl.

Life was soooooooo much simpler 20 years ago when all I had to contend with was breaking out the brushes. Now-a-days you've gotta have several degrees in composites (got that), computer sciences (workin at it) and a dozen other mindbogglin' things that has entered the Sign Painter field.

I hope I haven't entered the forum here too new to converse. What I probably should be doing is asking the manufacturers of the equipment.

The only thing I'm trying to get in this topic is a direction to begin. You folks are working in the trenches that I've been out of for over 20 years. This stuff didn't exist that I knew of when I was slappin paint.......

Posted by Brian Cornwell (Member # 2509) on :

I forgot..... For Example:

The products located at this particular site pertaining to Sign Systems:

http://www.jsisign.com/products/index.html

Can anyone perhaps advise me as a good place to start. Or what might be the best overall system.
Not that I have 15 grand to plop onto the table at the moment but maybe in 3 or 4 months I'll be more prepared and advised on the subjects.

I do believe this forum is THE place, the only place I have found anyway, that contains the folks that provide the answers.

Posted by Doug Allan (Member # 2247) on :

Well thats a big question & I think you could stay up all night (or week for that matter) just reading related topics available through searching on this BB. Not only is there an abundance of valuable info. here any day of the week, but it's all still here.

If you want to choose a system for designing new layouts, importing old files, driving a cutter, & possibly printing on vinyl, you have your work cut out for you. There's almost as many configurations & software/hardware opinions as there are members.

I think you need to identify your expectations & your budget to narrow down the field. I would think used equipment may be a consideration.

quote:
I'm not looking for the typical snobbish replies between PhotoShop and Illustrator and CorelDraw.

I am not sure what replies you want to avoid but you are mentioning superior software to yours. If you can create & edit bitmap files as well as you need to & can save as .tif files for digital printing, then don't worry about Photoshop. As for the other two, they both have the potential to save you the higher cost of sign specific software to run a plotter.
Many people here can advise of the bridge programs you can supplement either Illustrator or Corel with to cut vinyl. Again, this has all been written repeatedly just in the 3 months I've been visiting this site. My experience is with a sign program, that I got second hand with a plotter for next to nothing. I use all three programs you mentioned as well, just like you have several brushes.

As for using your existing files, good sign software should be able to vectorize 1 color rastor images. Otherwise Adobe Streamline is only about $140.

Posted by Brian Cornwell (Member # 2509) on :

Much appreciated and thank you Doug. That's about the same conclusions I came to . . . that there really isn't a pinpointed one size fits all solution. I'll just have to bump and grind my way around seeing what works and hopefully not doing too much damage due to stuff that doesn't...

Thanks~!

Posted by George Perkins (Member # 156) on :

Brian, be patient, sometimes the right answer takes a few days on here but it almost always comes. Paint Shop Pro is one software that doesn't get mentioned on here much at all. I believe Timi is familiar with it.
I downloaded a trial copy of it a number of years ago. Seemed like a pretty neat program. At the time I was using Corel4 with a bridge to cut with. Seems like PSP and Corel wouldn't share any files that were of any use, the horror show you mentioned. If there is a way you will soon enough hear about it.

Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :

If output to a plotter for cutting vinyl is what you need, you'll also need some sort of vector drawing program. This means you'll be tracing that artwork you've already done.

Does Paint Shop Pro have a feature that lets you draw Bezier curves/paths? I know in photoshop you can draw bezier paths (which are vector elements) then you have the option to export that path into Illustrator format which would allow easy importing into any design, sign or vinyl cutting software. If Paint Shop Pro has a similar feature you could at least use your existing software to do the work.

Otherwise I think you are stuck tracing the artwork with some other vector drawing program like CorelDRAW, Illustrator, Streamline, Freehand or a sign industry-specific program.

Posted by Mike Kelly (Member # 2037) on :

I agree with Da Pimpman. Plus, if you run into a problem with one of those programs, you have hundreds of people on this board who are familiar with them. I use CorelDRAW 7, which I got off Ebay, new, for $20. Bought a new SummaCut D60 for under 2G's, CoCut Pro for about $500, and was cutting vinyl the same day they arrived. Much less than the $15000 you were thinkin'.

Posted by timi NC (Member # 576) on :

Paint Shop Pro is primarily a bitmap editing program. It is great for opening vector images & converting them for bitmap use& transfering files from one format to another it is not a vector based drawing program.I'm not all that familiar with the upgrades since the win95 version but I wouldn't try to use it for output to a plotter,..way too much hassle converting bitmaps to vector for vinyl cutting machine output.If you intend to design art that ultimately is to be cut in vinyl,you'll want to use a program that uses a vector based drawing format.Coreldraw and Adobe Illustrator,are the 2 primary vector based programs on the market that use this format.There are several others that use a vector format file system and most of these are rather inexpensive compared to dedicated sign making software.

There are also many CAS(computer aided signage) programs written primarily to out put to a plotter.These can vary in cost from shareware(free for the first thirty days) priced at $99 to thousands of dollars.In the end I feel you get what you pay for & if you shop around there are lots of bargains in used packages out there on classified forums & online auction sites.If you do a search you can also find demo's of most programs available for download online. If you intend to open a business I would consider at least one dedicated signmaking program for starters.

[ December 01, 2001: Message edited by: timi NC ]

Posted by Brian Cornwell (Member # 2509) on :

Thanks folks, that's pretty much what I was thinking otherwise I guess I wouldn't have asked. I appreciate the input and a direction to go in.

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