Editing a logo for printing decals

[stevef45]

I am attempting to edit a logo that I want to try and print for my freelanced material handling cars. I used a free somewhat copied version of photoshop on the net and cleaned it up. When I figured out the size, i resized it according. However when I do a test print on regular paper it looks all pixelated. The original image before being scaled down isn't. Am I doing something wrong?

[edwardsutorik]

If you haven't already done this, go to Image, Image Size. Keep your dimensions, but change the Resolution to something like 1200. This MAY improve things enough for your purposes. There may be other Photoshop workarounds online, but I don't know of any. You might try inventing search terms and see what comes up.

From my experience, the "real problem" is that Photoshop is pixel based. If you change the image to vector based (Adobe Illustrator or other), your problems will likely disappear. The bad news is that there's a good bit of learning before you can pull it off. Look up using the Pen Tool to see what you'll be getting into.

I ran into your (I think) problem when I made my own business cards. I did them in Photoshop because I was comfortable with it. I took the file to a printer. He said it would print pixilated. He was right. He said to do it in Illustrator. He was right. Again. For my card, it was just printing and a red stripe. So I hit my head against a wall for a couple of hours and managed to put something together that actually worked. LOOKED GREAT!!


Ed

[Christian]

When you changed the size did you use a resample tool or just a stretch tool? JPG gives smallish file sizes by tossing out repetitive information. And it does this every time you hit "save." A bunch of saves and you haven't got a lot left. IF you have your original, first save it as a tif. Then do your edit and resample. TIF (TIFF) maintains all the information.

Or create the logo using a vector program as Ed mentioned. There is a learning curve with vector drawing and CAD (also vector) that does drive many folks to frown and drink stuff. Inkscape is an open source vector program avail for Win, Mac and Linux. I don't see a trace function, but it's well endowed with illustration tools. Plus a tutorial. A common way of tracing is to put the jpg on a locked layer then create a new vector drawing over it.

A solid free CAD is DraftSight. No 3D tools in the freebie.

Of course, this leads to a whole other sort of hobby.

[Deleted]

May 7, 2016 11:44:29 GMT -8 Christian said:

When you changed the size did you use a resample tool or just a stretch tool? JPG gives smallish file sizes by tossing out repetitive information. And it does this every time you hit "save." A bunch of saves and you haven't got a lot left. IF you have your original, first save it as a tif. Then do your edit and resample. TIF (TIFF) maintains all the information.

Or create the logo using a vector program as Ed mentioned. There is a learning curve with vector drawing and CAD (also vector) that does drive many folks to frown and drink stuff. Inkscape is an open source vector program avail for Win, Mac and Linux. I don't see a trace function, but it's well endowed with illustration tools. Plus a tutorial. A common way of tracing is to put the jpg on a locked layer then create a new vector drawing over it.

A solid free CAD is DraftSight. No 3D tools in the freebie.

Of course, this leads to a whole other sort of hobby.

Thanks for the lead on Inkscape, looks like a great vector editing program- I'll be spending some time with it this coming week.

I like the free 2D Draftsight so much, I ditched my older AutoCAD program (well, it wouldn't run in Windows 10 anyway. So it was spend $$$ on a new AutoCAD license or go to free Draftsight).

For editing ordinary raster images like most logos model railroaders are going to come across, try open source GIMP. Open the file (jpg, pdf, png, tif, etc), then save it in the program's .xcf format. Edit away, no info will be lost. When done, save/export in any popular format.

www.gimp.org/

[stevef45]

Thanks for the info. I'll have to look into illustrator.

As for gimp, can't download it at work. The site I used to edit was PIXLR

pixlr.com/editor/