Hi,
What did you use for graphic design software when you created your road name and logo design that you sent off to the custom decal maker? I need to select something and learn it. I use Linux and Windows. The wife has a Mac box that she might let me use if I ask real nice. Any advice on something running on any of those OSes is welcome.
Thanks.
I’ve used Paint Shop Pro from Corel. It has a variety of uses including graphics design and photo touch-up.
dlm
As a decal maker I use Adobe Illustrator. Corel Draw is similar. There are also several other Vector based drawing programs out there. The reason I use vector based images is it is easier to scale the image up or down without losing resolution like will happen with bitmap based images. Learning vector based programs is fairly hard but not imposible. I am entirely self taught and sometimes consult at a local college with the instructor there when he runs up against something he can’t figure out. Anyway, most decal printers will prefer to work with vectors instead of bitmaps, so it would be best to start there.
Dan
I’d agree with the vector program for someone like you who is in it at a different level. But in my case, I’m only interested in HO scale in the first place. And, I work at 600dpi (pretty high resolution) so if I do need to resize something, there’s plenty of detail to work with.
Recently, a friend requested a set of decals I had made in HO scale for her layout which is O scale. I simply resized the image using a different dpi and even with a magnifying glass, the edges were still nice and clean.
Like you, I’m self taught. But learning a raster/bitmap program was pretty easy. I still have trouble with vector graphics. : (
dlm
It sounds like you are doing fine with your decals using a raster program. There is no rule saying you can’t use them, in fact there are a couple of people who produce them comercially who use rasters. I like vectors as they are easier to work with when you need to create layers. The thing you need to get your mind wrapped around when working with vectors is the whole concept of points and vectors (lines). All components of a vector based image are created with lines which terminate or connect to another at a point or node. Once you create a immage, say a star, and all points are connected, it can be filled with a color, gradient or swatch.
Of an interesting note…I found learning vectors a whole lot easier than learning rasters.
Dan
Thanks for the comments everyone. Stumbling around myself, I ran across Inkscape, an open source vector based graphics design program that will run on a lot of different platforms. It seems to have quite a following. I think I’m going to give it a go.
I used Jasc (now Corel) Paint Shop Pro.
Nick
I’ve made mine with Corel Draw. Years ago I’ve used even Word.
Wolfgang