I'm new to the board and have been enjoying this tremendously. The people on this board are so helpful it's amazing. I have a new problem if anyone has any advice, I'm game for anything about now.
Fire department wants this new logo put on their fire trucks. It's a multi-color Maltese cross with the Department of Defense emblem in the center. I've duplicated the design which they brought in on a 3" X 3" decal. I did a test print on the edge and it's just horrible. Grainy and blurred. Anyone have any suggestions on how to clean it up?
I'm using Omega 1.56, in Las Vegas I saw a demo of 2.0, it allows you to use spot colors to do gradient fades, do you think that is the answer?
I have a scanned image of the original decal and the one I printed, but I don't know how to get them to show up here. I would be happy to e-mail the picture, or the Gerber file if anyone is interested.
Posted by Doug Allan (Member # 2247) on :
you can email me the file if you want. It's easy to post, but you need your own server (or space on your isp's server, like if you have a website) If you don't have a place you can upload files, I'd be willing to post these 2 for you.
signshop@islandsign.com
There are ways to do gradients before you get Omega 2.0 If you are looking to have just 2 colors gradiating (is that a word?) from one to the other, you could print the shape in a solid fill of the lighter color first, then do an overprint of the darker color fading from 90 - 100% down to 10 or 0% or whatever you need.
It will be easier for any of us to help once we see the job. For a lot of detail at 3" though spot colors should make a significant improvement.
[ April 18, 2003, 09:44 PM: Message edited by: Doug Allan ]
Posted by Vicki Powell (Member # 3796) on :
Guess what, just keep reading the BB and you can find anything, including a post about how to upload pictures if you don't have your own server. So let's try this
What do you know, it worked
The one on the right is obviously, the original, the one on the left, my horrible print.
Posted by Vicki Powell (Member # 3796) on :
By the way, this is how bad it looks at 3", it will need to be enlarged to at least 12"
Posted by Doug Allan (Member # 2247) on :
CONGRATS ON THE POSTING... here is some stuff I printed at 3" & obviously much less detail, but they came out great although this is just the file, not a scan on the print:
As for the gradient, if you have the vector file (or you recreated it) you should be able to get better results using spot colors. The presidential seal will be tough to get real clear at that size no matter what you do. Do you have the vector file for that? Corel Draw has clip art of lots of govt. emplems like that. If you want to check out a sample of a spot color radial gradient in 2 colors that I did without Omega 2.0 click here or check out Mark's "new (wierd) one" post.
Posted by Fred Weiss (Member # 3662) on :
The print could be improved by changing to a halftone type which supports changing the lpi (lines per inch) setting. Classic Dot at 53 lpi would be much improved over what you're showing us here which appears to be either the preview thumbnail from Omega or a bad choice of halftone.
Are we looking at a screen capture or a scan of a test print? Are you printing with and Edge I or Edge II?
But even that will go just so far since the nature of thermal resin printing is that mid-range colors are going to show noticeable halftone patterns.
There are two other options worth exploring depending on the budget of your customer.
1. Hand digitize the artwork which will give you better detail and allow the use of spot colors. Much of what's there can be replaced with available vector artwork.
2. Have an outside jobber print and cut the piece for you that has a solvent inkjet and cutter system (Graphtec SignJet, Roland SolJet etc.)
Inkjets blend colors much better than resin printers. There's nothing in Omega II including spot gradients that will give you a halftone free print. I've been using O2 for several weeks now as a beta tester.
Posted by Fred Weiss (Member # 3662) on :
To make the case for hand digitizing the piece, here is the center artwork which can be downloaded in vector EPS format for free. The balance of the artwork is available in pretty much any collection of clipart.
Thanks everybody for the advice, I talked to the customer today and I think we may use a transparent red fade over signgold and do away with the two color fade, then everything else can be converted to spot colors. I'm also going to try to change the lpi settings, thanks for that bit of advice also.
Posted by Vicki Powell (Member # 3796) on :
Fred,
Thanks for the logo site, it's awesome, I've already had to recreate three or four of the logos I could've gotten from that site. Next time, it will be sooooo much faster.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
