Members fuzzbox Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 I need to convert a logo/font from either gif or jpg to a format used for graphic silk screen, without bying Adobe Illustrator for $500! How can I do that? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fourth Floor Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 Um...so, what? You need to do separations? If it's one colour, they should accept a jpeg. Gif will be too low res, I'd think. The printer should be able to do seps for you too. Or find an old copy of Illustrator or Photoshop. MORE INFO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dot-dot-dot Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 Originally posted by Fourth Floor If it's one colour, they should accept a jpeg. Gif will be too low res, I'd think. GIF and JPG have nothing to do with resolution, only compression and colour depth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fernmeister Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 what is the format? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fuzzbox Posted August 7, 2006 Author Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 Originally posted by fernmeister what is the format? not sure but whatever silk screen printers use i guess. I know they use Illustrator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dot-dot-dot Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 I'd pick a printer and ask them - most likely they'll be able to work with whatever you have, or they'll be able to tell you what they can use. Otherwise you'll be going round in circles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fuzzbox Posted August 7, 2006 Author Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 Originally posted by dot-dot-dot I'd pick a printer and ask them - most likely they'll be able to work with whatever you have, or they'll be able to tell you what they can use. Otherwise you'll be going round in circles. I did, he said it can't be jpg, gif's etc...has to be "real" graphic font format, he showed me in Illustrator. They charge like $40 to convert it so I just figured I could do it myself...somehow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dot-dot-dot Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 Did he give you a list of acceptable file formats? If not, go elsewhere - they do not sound like they want to help you at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Brian Marshall Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 most good screen printers are pretty accomodating. If its all one color it almost doesnt matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fernmeister Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 "grasshopper, if you can snatch the picture format from my hand, you are ready..." seriously, if they can't tell you what formats are acceptable, they are bad news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Thrash123 Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 They probably want something in vector format. Here is a crash course in bitmap vs. vector: Bitmap is just like it sounds - the file basically details what color each dot is. .jpg, .gif, .png, and .bmp are a few examples of bitmap formats. Vector means it uses algorithms/coordinates to plot lines/shapes. The reason they want vector graphics is because there is no loss of quality when you increase the size - when you increase a bitmap file, you are basically enlarging the dots. With vector graphics, it just redraws it at a higher resolution. For printing, you need to usually have at least 150 dots per inch - preffered is 300+. Screens display at around 72 dpi (dots per inch), so if it looks small on your screen, it is going to have to be even smaller in print. Depending on their printing, text will come out looking spotty around the edges if a bitmap format is used without extremely high resolution. I work at a newspaper - you wouldn't believe the stuff people send us to use in print (for advertising). They think we can magically enlarge it, when in reality, there is nothing we can do (we usually only have 15-30 minutes to spend designing an ad, so we don't have a whole lot of time to do "extra" work). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gil1 Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 Part of the issue's going to be what the logo is. If it's just type, they may want art with the logo set in the typeface, using a pre-drawn font by Adobe, ect. If it's art (like a picture, or hand drawn logotype) they may want it to be redrawn as vectors. But the art might not lend itself to that. They may be saying "give us an EPS file", in which case you could just save it out as an EPS bitmap. But when they say "Give us a "real" graphics format, that's not very helpfull. More snotty and posturing. JPG isn't my favourite, but most Stock Photo houses deliver in JPG, and any Digital Camera shoots in JPG, so a lot of pro work has gone through the JPG format. Then I usually save to Tiff (mostly) or EPS. So I guess there's two questions: 1. Is it one, two or more colors.2. Ask the printer if he's asking for a vector file (like Thrash123 described) or if a high res Tiff will work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members angus_old Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 Originally posted by Thrash123 I work at a newspaper - you wouldn't believe the stuff people send us to use in print (for advertising). They think we can magically enlarge it, when in reality, there is nothing we can do (we usually only have 15-30 minutes to spend designing an ad, so we don't have a whole lot of time to do "extra" work). ++ the "you can download the logo from our web site" ones are worst. i'm supposed to print a 100x60 graphic at 300 dpi, right Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Wilbo26 Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 My guess is either .EPS or .AI file format. Not sure if there are any open source utilities that will do those conversions for free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members angus_old Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 it's not a straightforward conversion, it has to be traced. unless it's a really big .gif or .jpg, your best bet is probably to pay the $40 or hire your own graphic artist to trace or redraw it. it's not just clicking a 'convert' button, there is some art involved in setting the tracing parameters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dave esmond Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 Originally posted by onbongos ++the "you can download the logo from our web site" ones are worst. "Didn't I give you one fo my business cards?" is right up there too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Thrash123 Posted August 7, 2006 Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 Heh, we've had people send us stuff printed out from their home computers (or FAXED) that they want us to scan. Sad thing is, sometimes, we actually have to go with that. I do as much work on it as I can, but.. Ugh. Anyway, it just occured to me that Inkscape may be able to trace it and save in a .eps format (which is probably what they want). Google it. I'm busy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fuzzbox Posted August 7, 2006 Author Members Share Posted August 7, 2006 can i just send them my windows font i use and they'll be able to open it in Illustrator and type the name? all it is is a 10 letter word using a certain font i have. just plain white text! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fuzzbox Posted August 8, 2006 Author Members Share Posted August 8, 2006 ok, i phoned them up to get more info! for print on t shirts! 1 Silk screen: needs to be an .ai file, vectorized, no renamed jpg's etc. 2 Heat print: jpg is ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fuzz Explosion Posted August 8, 2006 Members Share Posted August 8, 2006 I didn't bother reading this whole thread so someone may have mentioned this. Open your jpg (Which should be high resolution to start with. If it's not 300 dpi or more, it will look bad) and hit print. A dialog box should appear, choose print to PDF and your done. Illustrator will open a pdf file and be just as tweakable in the right hands as an ai file. However, a silkscreen shop should take a high rez jpg if it's just one color. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members iodine74 Posted August 8, 2006 Members Share Posted August 8, 2006 They can probably take an EPS as well. But yeah what they want is your graphic with all the fonts 'vectorized' . Think of it this way... when you type something out, Illustrator treats it as text -- you can change fonts, sizes, add bolds, italics (just like you'd do in a word processing program). But when you convert that type to vectors, you can't change the font or text of that 'set of words' or whatever you just typed. When you do this conversion to vectors, it basically creates outlines of the font. These outlines are actually being stored as a set of mathmatical formulas... so (as already mentioned) you can resize it without loss of quality. But at this point they are merely outlines that define shapes that LOOK like type/fonts. One of the reasons they want you to do that is so that they don't have to have the font loaded on their machine. I wonder if you send them a gif that was created at 300dpi and the dimensions (in inches) that is needed, if they'd be ok with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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