program for design

[jokrz]

i am new to all this. i am wanting to know what a good program is to design a lil bit. i use vinylmaster pro software for my machine. also is there a good program to vectorize images with.

 

[Fred Weiss]

CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator are two that are very popular for vector creation and editing.

 

[jokrz]

okay ty very much i will have to look into that. also can i set my plotter up to run with them or do i have to keep using vinylmaster pro.

 

[Fred Weiss]

Graphtec supplies a plugin for cutting from Illustrator. I'm not sure if it also works with CorelDRAW or not. You may or may not find it adequate for your needs and you might prefer to export your Illustrator or CorelDRAW creations as EPS format and then open them in VinylMaster Pro for additional changes and production.

 

[jokrz]

okay ty very much for the info. i will be cutting some images real soon.

 

[phototec]

Graphtec supplies a plugin for cutting from Illustrator. I'm not sure if it also works with CorelDRAW or not. You may or may not find it adequate for your needs and you might prefer to export your Illustrator or CorelDRAW creations as EPS format and then open them in VinylMaster Pro for additional changes and production.

I used Cutting Master for years to cut vinyl right out or Illustrator on my Graphtec plotter, never used the software that came with it. I found Illustrator did everything I needed with the advantage of being driven by the FULL power of Illustrator and all it's ability and compatibility with Photoshop.

There is nothing you can't scan in Photoshop, convert, manipulate, export to Illustrator to vectorize, do all the vector design work, font conversions, logo tweaking, sizing, scaling and then sending the job to the Graphtec plotter. And yes Cutting Master 2 also works with CorelDRAW.

And now Graphtec came out with Cutting Master 2, and it has even more functionality, see the link below and watch the different videos.

http://www.graphtecamerica.com/FAQs/cutting_master2.html

 

[jokrz]

i have someone want ting a certain image they found on the web and i cant get illustrator to give me a good vector image of it. i must be doing something wrong. i am still learning illustrator

 

[Fred Weiss]

i have someone want ting a certain image they found on the web and i cant get illustrator to give me a good vector image of it. i must be doing something wrong. i am still learning illustrator

It's most likely a low resolution image that won't lend itself to auto tracing. You would then hand trace it with the Bezier Pen tool or send it out to be done by an outsource like The Vector Doctor.

 

[jokrz]

okay ty i will give it a try

 

[phototec]

i have someone want ting a certain image they found on the web and i cant get illustrator to give me a good vector image of it. i must be doing something wrong. i am still learning illustrator

Yep, you need to learn your skills and certainly need to learn how to use illustrator, it's NOT automatic.

If you want to grow in this business and do GOOD work, you need to lean the tools that allow you to do so.

Illustrator is a very powerful tool and has a harder than normal learning curve, but like all things in life, you get out it what you put into it, so check Google and YouTube and watch and learn all you can on how to use Illustrator, once you lean how to drive it, it's like winning the Indi 500!

Another very good source for Illustrator training is: Total Training for $1 a day.

http://www.totaltraining.com/

 

[larrysignman]

try this

i have someone want ting a certain image they found on the web and i cant get illustrator to give me a good vector image of it. i must be doing something wrong. i am still learning illustrator

In photoshop, select by color, then in layers click they arrow to drop down a menu to create a work path, then export the workpath under file menu to illustrator, this will create a vector file you can import or open with illustralor or most any sign software.

*Note - this is only as good as the original raster image, if pretty lousy I try to first enlarge the raster image to 10-15 megs, possibly do a slight Guassian blur & cleanup the image as much as possible. After 15 years I have found this works better than any auto trace I've ever had the displeasure of using. You may still have to clean up the vector a bit before cutting. I currently use Signlab, but have experience with Composer/Omega, Flexi, Corel & of course Adobe.
Good luck

 

[shaunmorrell]

Incidentally and on a technical note VinylMaster Pro was replaced by VinylMaster Xpt which has around 10 times the number of design tools than the old program had.

Thanks