Scanning Decals

[zog139]

I am impressed with Kurts decal page and the quality of the images. I think I understand that most of them have been re-drawn to clean up the edges etc. My question is simple. I scanned the "stickers" from my BT-60 Estes Patriot and the file came out OK with one problem. The backround appears to be grey when printed out on regular photo paper. Why wouldnt the scanner leave the background white behind the black lettering and bars ? Any thoughts or ideas ?

[CaninoBD]

A scanner does just that, It scans that area and records what it sees, in this case the background of the decal isn't pure white. Also it not going to a uniform color all the way thru. You also might get some artifacts based on your scanner and how clean the glass is. Depending on your graphic software, there should be something to make the background uniform and white

[mycrofte]

I always have to pull up the picture in a paint program and clean them up.

[Gus]

I am impressed with Kurts decal page and the quality of the images. I think I understand that most of them have been re-drawn to clean up the edges etc. My question is simple. I scanned the "stickers" from my BT-60 Estes Patriot and the file came out OK with one problem. The backround appears to be grey when printed out on regular photo paper. Why wouldnt the scanner leave the background white behind the black lettering and bars ? Any thoughts or ideas ?Jim,

I do a fair amount of scanning and photoshopping. The "white" background will vary depending on several things: the item's background paper color, the scanner used, and the settings at which you are scanning. Since the first two of these are pretty much a given, it is only the third one you can manipulate.

The easiest way to think of this is the difference in scans you get at the highest resolution versus what you would get at the "black and white" setting. While the highest resolution scan will give you the most accurate colors, it will also pick up every little ditzel on the original and will likely make any background white look off-white with lots of little flecks in it. To get the white parts back to white you usually have to spend a fair amount of time erasing all the off-white elements. At the opposite end of your scanner settings, the "Black and White" setting will give you no color but the background white will look white.

Now that you've seen the two ends of the scan spectrum you can start to play with the intermediate settings. What settings you choose depends on how complex the decal set is. For a simple set with only a few well defined colors you may be best off to scan the decal at a "grey scale" setting at only 8 or 16 bits, and then use your paint program to paint-bucket the different blocks of color. For more complex decals you may be better off doing a scan in color, then another black and white scan, and using the black and white scan as a "mask" to select out the white areas. (You can also usually do all this in photoshop with just one original scan by adjusting "thresholds", "levels", "contrast & lighting", etc.)

The major thing to remember is that it is very rare that you will scan something and have the initial scan be acceptable to reproduce without manipulation. How much manipulation depends on the particular decal.

That's why, for me, for some particular decals, it makes more sense to buy them from one of our vendors than to try to reproduce them myself. The cost of the decal isn't in the paper and ink, it's in the time needed to make a good image worth reproducing. Depending on the decal, there are some that can take many hours to clean up. I think of digital painting just like real painting. The end result depends on the quality of the prep and, unfortunately, often there are few shortcuts.

Now if I could just find a vendor willing to do my real paint prep I'd be all set. ;)

Hope this helps,

Steve

p.s.- wish I could join you guys for your Bar-B-Que and rocket launch on Father's Day. Sounds like fun.

[zog139]

Thanks Steve,

I need to get a copy of or something similiar to photoshop to work on these. Thanks for the tips on scanning, I might try the B&W setting next since the decal only needs to be in black.


Any suggestions on software and ease of use ?


Jim

[gpoehlein]

Something else that might work depending on your scanning software - some programs allow you to create a "mask". You could scan the decal page twice, once in black and white and once in color. Use the B&W as a mask (you might have to fill in some areas with the paint bucket tool) set so that the black areas are brought through and the white areas are masked out. Again, this depends entirely on the software you are using. Experimentation is definitely in order.

Greg

[Gus]

Any suggestions on software and ease of use ?

Jim,

I use Photoshop Elements which is a dumbed down version of the full Photohop program. It definitely has everything I need.

What I don't have is a good drawing program. I'd really like Adobe Illustrator but even the student price is way more than what I want to spend. Unfortunately, right now on the Mac there just aren't many options. Pretty ironic considering the whole genre was started on the original Mac with MacDraw and MacPaint. I used to use both ClarisWorks and Deneba's Canvas but both are out of business. If anybody has some good suggestions I'd like to hear them.

[mycrofte]

Most of the time I still use the old Paint Shop Pro. I've tried the newer versions and don't like the changes.

[j.a.duke]

Thanks Steve,

I need to get a copy of or something similiar to photoshop to work on these. Thanks for the tips on scanning, I might try the B&W setting next since the decal only needs to be in black.


Any suggestions on software and ease of use ?


Jim

Jim,

What do you have for hardware and software? There are a couple of options for both Mac & PC, but once we know what you have, the resulting info might be daunting.

Cheers,
Jon

[Eagle3]

Jim,

I use Photoshop Elements which is a dumbed down version of the full Photohop program. It definitely has everything I need.

What I don't have is a good drawing program. I'd really like Adobe Illustrator but even the student price is way more than what I want to spend. Unfortunately, right now on the Mac there just aren't many options. Pretty ironic considering the whole genre was started on the original Mac with MacDraw and MacPaint. I used to use both ClarisWorks and Deneba's Canvas but both are out of business. If anybody has some good suggestions I'd like to hear them.

Steve, if/when I ever do any scale drawings again it will be with ClarisDraw. I have an old iMac just for that purpose. I spent way too much time creating stock "parts" to throw it all away for another drawing program.

Buzz

[El Cheapo]

I've never scanned or printed my own decals. However, the other day I was in Kinkos and asked if they could laser print on decal paper. The answer was, yes, as long as you bring in the packaging that states it is safe for Laser copiers or printers. The cost was absolutely minimal at the price of a color laser copy. All they need is the file in pdf format. I figure I'll give it a try one of these days and let you know.

[Gus]

Steve, if/when I ever do any scale drawings again it will be with ClarisDraw. I have an old iMac just for that purpose. I spent way too much time creating stock "parts" to throw it all away for another drawing program.

Buzz
Buzz,

Pete has the same problem. When I retired my old Rev. 2 iMac (Bondi Blue :) of course) I gave it to Pete. He had the same model which was having all sorts of problems so it was just easier to port his stuff to a similar model and continue from there.

My latest generation iMac is wonderful but I had to load up an old version of AppleWorks just to use a lot of my old files.

I find it really astounding that the folks who invented the entire paint and draw program idea no longer ship a version of either with the Mac. But, then, Microsoft dropped Visual Basic which has caused me just as many problems with their software. Kind of interesting to watch these two each move away from such legacy products.

[zog139]

Im flying with a Dell PC actually laptop 2gb ram WIndows XP Intel Centrino Duo Processor. Reasonably fast enough. I have attempted to use Corel Draw and it just seemed so overwhelming IMHO.

I just want to be able to take images and scale them up and down. and print. I dont see me ever "re-drawing" decal files.

[tbzep]

Kody and I redraw with GIMP. It's available for us Linux lovers and for WinBlows and Mac OS X. It is an awesome program for the money.



It's free. :cool:



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