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Calling all photoshop users

R

Rhinoz

New Member
I would just like some general opinions to help EVERYONE on this site. I'm not asking you to reveal your deep dark photoshop/signmaking secrets, what I'm looking for is general hints and tips to help others in the signmaking industry on how you take you design work from photoshop and then apply it to your clients request.

I think this would help the new people to this site in the fact that there aren't just pure Corel/Illustrator/Flexi etc users here, and they use all sorts of programs including Photoshop.

1)Like how to create a cutline:

2)What format to save it in so that it can be taken into a vector program:

3)How to format the text/images in photoshop so that the vector program can recognise and resize easily without blurs/loss of effects etc

I'm not trying to start a "graphics war" here, I just think it's important that people should know how to do something easier if there is a shortcut.

I think this thread will get very long because of all the fantastic expertise within this site, and my hat goes off to Fred for even putting this site up.

What I do ask is that this thread be constructive and not turn into a "putdown to other program users" thread :thumb:

Might even be good to turn some of these replies into a "sticky" Photoshop tutorial thread.
 
Fred Weiss

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
1)Like how to create a cutline:

There are any number of ways to create an outline vector in Photoshop ... You can use the Bezier Pen to draw it by hand, you can get the image down to where it can be selected and then convert the selection to a path followed by exporting the path as an Illustrator file, or you can convert the image to solid black and autotrace it outside of Photoshop in your favorite tracing application.

Depending on your other software this may not even be necessary as many of them will trace a contour cut by disregarding the internal detail of an image.

2)What format to save it in so that it can be taken into a vector program:

Speaking only to the vectors you are generating in Photoshop, it depends on your program lineup but AI or EPS is generally the most reliable format and highly accurate.

3)How to format the text/images in photoshop so that the vector program can recognise and resize easily without blurs/loss of effects etc

Start out by working at a large enough pixel dimension that you end up with something in the neighborhood of 100 ppi at full size is your best assurance of sharp output. The format you choose should simply be one that your software does a good job with. Later versions of most applications are all starting to do a good job with PDF. Older versions may not. Other good formats are TIF or JPG. When you get strange import results color wise, the first thing to check is the color mode the file is save in. TIF and JPG can be saved in either CMYK or RGB but many applications expect TIF to be CMYK and JPG to be RGB and will screw up the color if they are not.
 
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