Applications for printing.

[ClaireHelen]

I have been reading through the resources here which I have found very useful.

I have a question about applications used to print decals which I am not sure if it has been asked before but apologies if it has.

Is there any preferred application to print the decal designs out when drawn in terms of whether any application provides better results than others ?

My designs are rastor based but drawn at 600 ppi so look good on screen.

The designs are made using the sRGB colour space but I use an inkjet that prints at 4800 dpi and have had the waterslide decal paper profiled to get the best colour match I can which works out well in terms of matching the colour on screen.

I have been using MS word or even PowerPoint to put all the finished decals on one sheet and then trying to make sure the printer controls the colour matching and paper profiling to get the best results.

Are these office applications the right things for me to be using to print out a sheet of decals ?

I had given some thought to trying to get them together in photoshop which I used to draw the original designs but the office applications seem easier for getting them all together on one sheet rather than creating a large image in photoshop with all the designs on 

Are other people using office applications for printing ?

 

[MAB]

I don't think the software matters, so long as the colours are resolution are good when you print, you'll get good results.

[ClaireHelen]

Thanks you 

[JopieK]

@MAB I don't agree, the software does matter. Powerpoint might compress your images. Word and Powerpoint are also not meant for graphics. GIMP (Open source), maybe Paint .Net and Photoshop are better. I always use vectors though, they stay sharp no matter what (Illustrator / Inkscape): eps / svg.

[ClaireHelen]

Thank for this much appreciated. I create them in photoshop so will try that out and see how it goes. 

[MAB]

On 10/16/2019 at 2:08 PM, JopieK said:

@MAB I don't agree, the software does matter. Powerpoint might compress your images. Word and Powerpoint are also not meant for graphics. GIMP (Open source), maybe Paint .Net and Photoshop are better. I always use vectors though, they stay sharp no matter what (Illustrator / Inkscape): eps / svg.

You can turn off all compression of images in Word and other office products and use the "High Fidelity" option to get the maximum resolution of the image. If the images are 600 dpi, then Word can handle those fine and they won't look any different to the same 600 dpi image printed using different software.

 

[dr_spock]

I use Inkscape when I need to convert rasters to vectors for enlarging.  Rasters downsize ok. Scaling up maybe not so much.  Really depends on the starting image and what output you want to achieve. 

[ClaireHelen]

Thanks. I am drawing them in essentially the right image size in Photoshop but at 600 ppi so as to be high enough resolution to keep the lines and detail all crisp.

My photo printer can print the images out at 4800 dpi so the colours come out well and when zoomed in for a macro shot you see a nice uniform colour unlike what I get from my regular desktop printer.

I had been using Powerpoint and ensuring the option is selected to keep the image high quality then using the printer driver to manage colour from there as I have had a custom profile made for the waterslide paper I use. 

I was wondering if you get any better results with other applications as using photoshop to create a sheet to print was less attractive than the office apps I had been using but it does look like so long as you ensure no app downgrades the image quality and then I let the printer profile manage the rest it should be ok.

Next on to colour matching. Even with a calibrated monitor and profiled paper and printer, matching some colours is a right pain. Even with a good printer there are still plenty of colours out of gamut for the paper profile I have been using. I may need to see if better waterslide decal paper makes a difference and try something else than the cheaper one I am using now.

Thank you all for your advice.

 

[MAB]

Are you using white (opaque) decal paper and trying to match the edges of the decal with the torso underneath? One problem I found with that is once you have cut the decal out, the white edges show through. There is no way to bleed the colour over the edges, as you print then cut, rather than apply print to a precut design.

I found printing on clear decal paper was fine, so long as you apply to light torsos. Although even then, like LEGO printing, the printed colours change depending on the underlying torso.

 

[ClaireHelen]

Thanks. Am using transparent for light backgrounds and white for dark where transparent doesn’t work or alters the colours too much. I make a lot of figures on a white or very light torso so the clear work well but for the darker colours just trying to colour Match the print as much as I can. I have calibrated the monitor and had a profile made for me for the paper so it’s just some trial and error now to try to get the colours as close as I can. 

[JopieK]

5 hours ago, MAB said:

You can turn off all compression of images in Word and other office products and use the "High Fidelity" option to get the maximum resolution of the image. If the images are 600 dpi, then Word can handle those fine and they won't look any different to the same 600 dpi image printed using different software.

 

Of course you can, I know, I am a software engineer so I could even program some tool for it, that is not the point, Word and Powerpoint are office tools. Why make things more difficult than they are.

[MAB]

11 hours ago, JopieK said:

Of course you can, I know, I am a software engineer so I could even program some tool for it, that is not the point, Word and Powerpoint are office tools. Why make things more difficult than they are.

I'm not sure they are making it more difficult. From the original post they are designing their decals, then using the office programs just as a way of compiling the decals ready for printing. If they find it easier to do this than use whatever software they designed the individual decals in, then they should do it. If they are to cut the top and bottom of all the decals in a row at once, for example, they need to be aligned well. And some drawing software is not great at aligning individual items, whereas Word is good at this if they are all the same size. Although I'd use CorelDRAW, as I know it better than other programs and it has a decent align tool. But whatever the user finds the easiest to use. So long as they turn off the image compression, there should not be a quality problem using the Office programs.

So to me, it doesn't really matter what software they use to align the images, so long as they know how to use it.

 

[shiftaltcmd]

On 10/17/2019 at 6:40 PM, ClaireHelen said:

Next on to colour matching. Even with a calibrated monitor and profiled paper and printer, matching some colours is a right pain. Even with a good printer there are still plenty of colours out of gamut for the paper profile I have been using. I may need to see if better waterslide decal paper makes a difference and try something else than the cheaper one I am using now.

Thank you all for your advice.

 

Don't spend too much time on it. Many of the lego colors are impossible to match with traditional four-color CMYK. You need to use a professional photo-printer with more colors to stand a chance. They come in different versions from 6 to 12 colors.

I haven't been able to find correct color values on the net, so for me it's a lot of trial and error. People might have guessed the color values and then published them as the "truth". Even if you get the correct values, no one has published what color space they have been using. European CMYK differs from American CMYK. sRGB differs from Adobe RGB and so on.

Some websites uses Pantone color values. That could work but so far I have not been able to trust them because of errors. And they don't provide any information if it is correct information from Lego or guess work.

[ClaireHelen]

Thanks. I am using a good entry level professional printer with 8 colours and have had the decal paper profiled so at least the colours I see on my calibrated monitor using soft proofing are what I now see in print. 

that said a number of the colours I would like to print to match the lego are out of gamut so won’t be spot on 
 

I have used available codes as a starting point and then adjust what i see on screen And print to try to match the brick colour  

some are just impossible colours for my printer So have to let it be slightly off or print to a different colour brick  

can get a good match a lot of the time but you notice it when you take a close up photo afterwards  

thanks again 

 

 

 

[MAB]

Especially when dealing with printing on LEGO, getting the "right" colours is fairly meaningless anyway.

LEGO's white might be white, but once printed on even a light colour like tan it is clearly not white as shown on the left. I'm glad they have moved towards alternatives such as the one on the right, as this covers up their inability to print light colours on darker ones properly.