Correct High Quality Vector Art… Either by Creation or Re-Creation
Quite often in any print media or any visual media for that matter your customer will submit artwork that is assumed to be ready to go. Over the years I have had everything from the literal postage stamp to billboards submitted for screen printing and sign graphics. Now mind you that today’s sign software and machines can do a fantastic job of auto-welding and cutting overlapped images and such, I just don’t like working like that. Depending on software and a knife to output the correct final product. I like to see before I wast customer time and my resources what the product should like like before I hit that print or cut button.
Below I’ve grabbed a simple design to use as a study subject….
Looking at this sample, you can see that “A” and “C” look the same. But when viewed as an outline, as most vinyl cutting equipment will see it, you can see in “B” where the images overlap at the “TR” in Contracting. You can also see in excavator that there are extra layers of objects, usually where another color was once and now had been changed to white.
Now looking at “D” you can see where the overlap has been removed, the excavator has a cleaner more defined edge and extra objects have been removed.
The benefits of creating correct vector art are many, such as better scaling (especially if you have converted your lines to objects), smaller file sizes, easier manipulation of colors and fast clean cutting for signs. Vectorized artwork became standard due to its ability to be enlarged indefinitely without loss of quality, while bit-mapped images must (or at least should) be created at the size and resolution of intended use. In other words if your bit-mapped image is to be printed on a 18”x24” signs it should be created at that size and at a resolution of at least 300 dpi for the best quality. While on the vector side, you can create a 2′x4” file that can be enlarged to 18”x24” or more and still have a perfect image for printing. While vector artwork will be around for ever, the new acceptable format is the Adobe PDF. PDF’s offer much of the clarity of vector files, plus almost any computer can open and view them.
I am always amazed that customer even give us art as nice as this sample, but I am more amazed at how many so called artists and Ad Agencies submit art that is of poor construction. High Quality vector artwork should be clean, scalable and fully in outlined form with no overlapped images or objects. Vector art has been a while now the industry standard for the advertising specialty printing industry, and the fact that many companies still submit bit-mapped images as their artwork/layout, well to me is just unacceptable. Remember in the art world, your final product is only as good as your submitted art.
Currently for all our vector artwork creation, we use Corel Draw X5 and Adobe Creative Suite CS4. WayneConcepts consider these the must have software for any company that positions itself as a creator of vector art. The time it took to create, well re-create this sample into a correct vector artwork was only about 3 minutes, literally only that much and you have art that is “perfect” vector.
Here are some tips on creating good quality vector or PDF files for your printing needs.
1. If using a bit-mapped source, use a conversion program, Corel Draw has this built into it, this will outline your bitmap and create a vector version of it. BE careful though, your bitmap source must still be of some quality to get a good conversion. I find that if working from a poor scanned image, that if I enlarge it at least 200% at 300 dpi then convert it, I can get very good results.
2. When saving or exporting your final vector art in either EPS, AI, or PDF, convert all your fonts to outlines and all your outlines to objects. This will eliminate any issues with missing fonts and remove any issues with line scaling if the art needs to be reduced or enlarged.
3. If you have a submitted vector file that has many overlapping objects or objects that can not be easily removed, try this quick trick. Convert the image to 600 dpi black and white bitmap, then use your vector conversion program to re-convert it into a cleaned vector file. It works great and is faster than trying to weld and merge many objects together.
For more info on creating high quality vector art, you can contact Wayne Hesler @ WayneConcepts… wayne@wayneconcepts.com
