I'm going back to Omega 1.52 unless you have a cure for this: I'll explain.
I take a photo, scanned or downloaded, into Corel PhotoPaint and "clean" out the background so it is solid white around the subject. So, for instance, if it is a bottle of beer, I erase everything from the picture except the beer bottle.
Now, I bring that image into Composer. I add text. So now I have a Beer bottle 11.8 inches tall and the words: "Have a Cold One! off to the side.
I print the job ( its 5 feet long ) and there is this light gray rectangle around the bottle of beer! Instead of a nice white background, you can see the boundry box of the image.
IT RUINS THE WHOLE JOB!
The whole 5 foot strip of digital printed vinyl is going on a kometex board 14" x 60"
Now I got this ugly light gray rectangle in the job also.
THIS NEVER EVER HAPPENED IN 1.52 or even in G.A.
When you clean out the background of an image to solid white, and then print the image, there should be no boundry box visable, just the subject.
This is a really big dissapointment, and I hope there is some adjustment in the output I can make.
If you understand the problem and know how to fix it, call me collect. Gerber has some difficulty returning calls these days.
If not, I'm going to have to go back to version 1.52. What a mess!
Thanks for all your help.
------------------ Draper The Signmaker Bloomington Illinois USA Be Sure to Check Out My Next Article On "Sign Shop Photography" in the March Issue of Sign Builder Illustrated! 309-828-7110 drapersigns@hotmail.com Draper_Dave on mIRC chat
Posts: 2883 | From: Bloomington Illinois USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
I'm not sure if this will help or not. Sometimes, my color printer does the same thing. I would suggest adjusting your settings (if you can) and/or reinstalling the driver for it. Maybe hit the website and see if there's an updated driver. I had a lot of photos last summer that looked great on the screen, but printed out with the gray background. Actually, I'm having a gray day here...
Chris
------------------ Chris King Paper Works & Graphix Indiana, PA
Posts: 4254 | From: Indiana, PA | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
Hi Dave, I'm not sure that I have "the" answer here as I'm on a Mac with photoshop but... Can't you erase to "nothing" vs. white? Check you white point in Corel, it may not be true white. 0 in cmyk or 255 for each channel in rgb. Also, what abour drawing a mask in corel or Omega?
------------------ Bill Modzel Mod-Zel screen Printing Traverse city, MI modz@traverse.com
Posts: 1357 | From: Traverse City, MI | Registered: Nov 1998
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Well, Im not happy! I have tried everything to print an image on a white background with out the Edge laying down a back ground of gray behind the image ( the image border box is printing in gray dots)
So I have screwed up prints now....thanks Gerber! Thanks for not returning any calls too.
I reinstalled Omega 1.52 and the problem is a little better, but its not the way it used to be. Beautiful image with a blur shadow fading into pure white....not any more!
I should have known better not to trust 1.54. 1.52 was working just fine, till I had to go and screw the whole thing up by upgrading.
The only way I can get through this job now is to try to clean off the gray dots with alcohol.
------------------ Draper The Signmaker Bloomington Illinois USA Be Sure to Check Out My Next Article On "Sign Shop Photography" in the March Issue of Sign Builder Illustrated! 309-828-7110 drapersigns@hotmail.com Draper_Dave on mIRC chat
Posts: 2883 | From: Bloomington Illinois USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Dave, I had the same experience with both an image and Gerber. The way that I got rid of the background was to create a mask in Corel Paint, bring it into Corel Draw, and then save it as a .CMX version 5. It didn't work when I tried to "Import" it from Corel, but it did work when I "opened" the .CMX. Gerber finally called me back (After I had already figured it out)and the tech asked me to e-mail her the file. I did, and never heard from her since.
------------------ Tom & Sharon Giampia Creative Image Design Port Chester, NY
Posts: 285 | From: Port Chester | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
Dave, you can make a mask, by doing a decal cut on the pic, then add a square, around it and select the decal cut the square and color it clear., I usually crop my pic down to the nitty gritty too so you don't have too much to deal with. I'm sure if this works in GA it will work in Omega. As for tech support answering you, everytime they ever answer me and ask me to send file, they call back and say it worked fine on their system, go figure. I like sign labs tech support much better. Bill
------------------ Bill & Barbara Biggs Art's Sign Service, Inc. Clute, Texas, USA Home of The Great Texas Mosquito Festival Proud Third year Supporter of the Letterheads Website MailTo:twobeesusa@netscape.net
Posts: 1020 | From: Lake Jackson,Tx | Registered: Nov 1998
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Well, I tried the mask thing, and it doesn't work. I put a cut line around the subject and a box around the border of the .bmp file and colored it clear....didn't work. Combined the two and took the cuts off, still didn't solve the problem.
But you should know one thing....We should not have to do that anyway to make it work. This is a problem Gerber caused and they should fix it! Period!
I have experimented with every setting in the color managment box. Then I found there is ANOTHER color management box in GS PLOT and it has to be set up also. WHY is there another color management setting located in GS PLOT? Makes no sense to me. If you set the controls in the color managment box in Composer, it doesn't change the one in GS PLOT. And when you are to ready to print a job in GS PLOT, why would you need to reset the moitor colors and the ink jet printer in the color managment box in GS PLOT? If you can figure that one out, please explain it to me.
The Help file is NO HELP when it comes to this subject. Its poorly written and hard to understand, and I did what it said to do and the problem still exists. It does mention that to achieve absolute white or absolute black background you have to tweek the color management box in GS PLOT not the one in Composer, which looks just like the one in GS PLOT.....arghhhhhhhhhhhh!
Then they avoid the whole issue saying "you may want to experiment with different values to determine the best values for your individual system"
I can tell the person who wrote that didn't have a clue what they were talking about. If THEY don't know how to set up a system...how are we? Do you know how many choice variations there are? What are we supposed to do, run 50 feet of vinyl and foil colors to try to figure it out on our own? It would take days....and to tell you the truth, I don't believe it would help....I think its screwed up.
What I did do was un-install 1.54 and Loaded in 1.50....(1.50 is the really screwed up Omega version.)
I got the image to print without the gray box because 1.50 does not have all those new fangled and worthless improvments. The problem with 1.50 is that it can lock up every other second.
The good thing about all of this is I did get the ink jet printer set right from within Omega so the gray boundry box does not print behind an ink jet printed image.
The other problem with 1.54 is my monitor colors are washed out. I loaded the Monoco color program in and tried to adjust the monitor colors. It's supposed to make the monitor "wysiwyg" (what you see is what you get) but so far that has been a rude joke!
Ok I'm done venting. The reason I'm really mad is that Omega 1.52 was working for me...perfectly! Then I stupidly just had to upgrade. Then when I tried to go back to 1.52, something had changed, whatever was working right was not working anymore.
This has taught me once again: "IF IT AINT BROKE.....DON'T TRY TO FIX IT!
This is really going to hurt me because we print a lot of small signs with an image and the lettering all on the one piece of vinyl and lay it down on Kometex to make a sign ( usually about 14" x 24" )
Now I will have to print a separate image, hand cut the contour, and stick it down separately, which will work but is a little "tacky"... (not the professional look I would like to see in this type of display sign )
I really hope there is just some minor adjustment that needs to be made to solve this problem.
Thanks again for all your imput
------------------ Draper The Signmaker Bloomington Illinois USA Be Sure to Check Out My Next Article On "Sign Shop Photography" in the March Issue of Sign Builder Illustrated! 309-828-7110 drapersigns@hotmail.com Draper_Dave on mIRC chat
Posts: 2883 | From: Bloomington Illinois USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
I'm not sure if I have the solution but I think I'm on to something. I have recently printed two different images from Omega after bringing them into composer from a PSD file format. I got a pure white area around it. I'm not sure if its the file format or if I did something else different but I thought I'd post this so someone else can try it.
I tired erasing the background of an image file in Adobe Photoshop 5 and saving it as a PDS file. I still get that damn gray box behind the image.
I did try erasing just part of the background. The results is a darker, gray rectangle box with a lighter gray area in the box where I re-erased the pixels.
If you will, do this.
1. place the image that worked in Composer
2. file > output > all (or "selected" if its just a section
now GS PLOT will open
3. click on File > color managment > black/white filter
4. look down toward the bottom of that window and you will see the "Vinyl Printer Filter (print as process CMYK) What are your number settings in the box?
5. The Gerber suggested settings are: white 5 (put a check mark in the box) black 95 ( not sure if you need a check mark in that box
If your setting is different, let us all know.
If you are getting a white background, and these numbers are the same as ours, then there must be another setting in another area that has to be adjusted.
At least we will have confirmation on what doesn't work. Maybe we can find the soultion.
Im really surprised Gerber hasn't seen this post and e-mailed a soulution to us and asked us to delete this post by now...( they always use to because it was a major pain to see this kind of post on a BB)
(This tells me they don't have a solution)
------------------ Draper The Signmaker Bloomington Illinois USA Be Sure to Check Out My Next Article On "Sign Shop Photography" in the March Issue of Sign Builder Illustrated! 309-828-7110 drapersigns@hotmail.com Draper_Dave on mIRC chat
Posts: 2883 | From: Bloomington Illinois USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Well I don't know whats up with this. I just printed the same file, this time it has the small dots, mostly from the cyan, around the image. I have not messed with the color settings. I have the good one I printed about 3 weeks ago in front of me. It was actually a project for a Thermalheads conference in LA. At the time i was surprised to see pure white around it because I've been having the same problem. So, There must be something happening different on those prints. I installed 1.54 well before any of these prints. I'll keep you posted if I figure it out.
posted
Hi Dave, Don't know if this will help or not but first paint out the background with white around the beer bottle like you've been doing and then use the magic wand tool and click on the white space. Then go to "mask" and then "invert" this masks around the bottle. Then "cut" the image from that page and go to "file" then "new from clipboard" This opens a new page with only the bottle. Save that as a cpt file and when you import it into corel there is no border of any kind. Don't know if this works in your program or not but might be worth a try.
------------------ When good things happen...that must be a sign!! Tony McDonald DBA-Ace Graphics & Printing P.O. Box 91 Camdenton, MO. USA (573) 346-6696 <daddyo@advertisnet.com> <tony@brownbeverage.com>
Posts: 1196 | From: Camdenton, MO. USA | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
We know this isn't a problem with the image file, it's pure white in Photoshop, it's something to do with Omega. I hope someone figures it out, I'm trying.
Just an update to help any having the problems mentioned originally in the posts above this one.
I had made a mistake stating in an earlier post that "masking" the bitmap image wouldn't work.
I was wrong. M.J. ("Golden") e-mailed me and basically asked me to try the masking technique one more time and make sure I had everything tweeked right.
It worked! So this will work for now, but its not a cure and we (Omega users) shouldn't have to do this at all!
1. Start with a NEW screen in composer. 2. Place the image file you want on the screen. 3. Click on the rectangle draw tool and create a box around the borders of the bit map. 4. Click the line draw tool next and tediously draw a line around your subject and then hit "end" on the keyboard to close the line.
5. Adjust the nodes in the line (only if you have too) around the subject to get it perfect.
6. Click on the box, hold down the shift key and click on the line around the image. Make sure the image is not part of the selection.
7. Click on the image fill icon, fill with clear, combine shapes, cuts off, to the front.
8. Print the image.
If you have "image fonts" to work with (like Fast Fonts), or pictures of flowers with a pure white background showing through the flowers, good luck! It wont be very easy to mask those jobs.
------------------ Draper The Signmaker Bloomington Illinois USA Be Sure to Check Out My Next Article On "Sign Shop Photography" in the March Issue of Sign Builder Illustrated! 309-828-7110 drapersigns@hotmail.com Draper_Dave on mIRC chat
Posts: 2883 | From: Bloomington Illinois USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Dave, I've got the answer to your problem. I know it's the answer because it worked for me.
GO BACK TO GRAPHIX ADVANTAGE 6.21
I did this myself last Friday and had one of the best days at work in two months. My program worked perfectly. No crashes. No stupid problems that bite you in the butt....after you've printed the job. Yep, the answer is simple. Go backwards young man. I've never done this in the 14 years I've been "playing" around with computers. But, maybe the wisdom of old....er age took hold and won out. If there were just one or even two little bugs in this Oy-mega program...I could work around them. But, why even try? As Dirty Harry once said..."A man's got to know his limitations". I do know the answer to your problem, really I do. Glenn Taylor had it pegged. But, so what? So you fix that one. It's not like that's all there are. Be happy once again and dump that Oy-mega. You won't believe how good Graphix Advantage looks once you start working with again. Do you design work in Corel 8 and export it as a CMX and you'll have all the "bennies" of Oy-mega without any of the headaches. Oh yes...one more thing....my nightmares are gone completely. I used to have this dream where I would stamp out little dots on a string and the string would keep getting more crooked...instead of straighter and smoother. Then...I would get down on my knees and get my eyes real close to the strings and they would become all jumbled and go every which-a-way. I would then wake up in a cold sweat yelling "OY OY OY MEGA". Thank God...those nightmares are gone and I'm sleeping like a baby again. Life is good.
------------------ Louis A. Lazarus Milt's Sign Service, Inc. 20 So. Linden Ave. #5B 650-588-0490 fontking1a@aol.com
Posts: 560 | From: El Granada, CA | Registered: Apr 1999
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