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converting a photograph to vinyl
I am in need of some advice/help. I have been given a photograph that the customer wants etched onto a mirror in vinyl.
I’m not sure on how to go about this and if it’s possible without losing too much of the photograph detail.
I know Signlab has a facility to do something along these lines but haven’t used it before.Can anyone help me out please?
thank you 😀
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27 Replies
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Marcella, in signlab you can do it with the photocut facility, but its a bit hit and miss to get the number of lines right, because signlab doesn’t give a good preview. You could also do it as a two tone cut out, similar to the Che Gavara t shirts of the sixties. Create a mono tone pic in corel, or PS
and adjust till you have a "cutable" image, then take it into signlab and trace.
Peter -
here you go Marcella
https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.p … yos#132276
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thank you …… I’ll give it a go and see if I can manage it! 🙂
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This is how we do it Marcella:
1. Open in Photoshop and convert to greyscale or desaturate.
2. Click Image>Adjustments>Threshold and move slider until getting the required shades.
3. Save as highest quality jpg.
4. Import jpg into Coreldraw and trace as black and white image.In Photoshop there is also a trace facility that sometimes works well by using Filter>Stylize>Trace Contour.
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Mes about with the stamp filter in photoshop, it can give good results, just get the smoothing and light/darkness right
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Hi Guys,
I’m not having much luck with this. Am I wasting my time? Is there any likelihood of this image being cut in etch??????? 😕
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I had a quick try and couldn’t come up with anything suitable
could you not print it on to etch?
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thanks Warren. They don’t want it printed unfortunately. 😕
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Try importing in to Illustrator make it bigger, then Efect > Sketch > Bas Relief > Photocopy will give you a good image to trace with Illustrator
works quite well for me, will need a bit of cleaning up.
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or use the stamp one
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that’s not a bad way of doing it Nick. But I’m still struggling to get anything suitable ……… if it was a face or something it would be better but I think this boring grey ship is the problem!
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can you just do a silhouette of it?
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I’m trying to get some sort of image together that I can email to him before cutting it in etch, as long as it looks good and looks like this ship then I don’t care LOL. He’s wanting it on a mirror to present to the officers on the ship ………… that leaves port THIS FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😕
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posted a file in file swapping for you to look at.
cheers
Warren
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Marcella,
How big is the mirror?, just wondering if it would look better when converted it to a laser file (via photograv etc) and get it laser engraved on to the mirror instead of sandblast etch.Alex.
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the mirror is 900 x 600mm …….. there’s text to add to it as well. Not got time to get it engraved …….. needs to be done by Thursday!!!! 😕
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quote :He’s wanting it on a mirror to present to the officers on the ship ………… that leaves port THIS FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Opps, should have read the entire topic… 😳
Alex.
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:lol1: no probs
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Will it be cut from the same grade of etch or can you use two/three shades or textures? It would probably be possible then.
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Marcella,
Have not tried it but is it possible to print onto a piece of etch through a solvent printer (it is only greyscale after all) – then hand cut out – say – the sky area? You could keep an etch border all round.
Looks a difficult photo to reduce to say even two colours/shades without losing too much – notwithstanding cleaning the nodes etc.
Martin
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quote Martin-G:Looks a difficult photo to reduce to say even two colours/shades without losing too much –
yeah, that’s what I’ve found. Hopefully I’ll get something that will suit him, he’s aware that a lot of detail will go.
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Can anyone suggest a font similar to the one used for D32 on this? Eurostyle is the closest I’ve found but wondered if there was anything better.
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Microgramma light will be quite close I expect.
It’s probably something special designed for the MOD – Warship light expanded 😀 -
quote Steve Morgan:– Warship light expanded 😀
:lol1: :lol1: :lol1:
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OK – emailed the customer a ‘rough’ drawing …………. and he’s going with it!!!!!!!! LOL Thanks for all your help guys. 😀
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I’m fascinated to know what the finished job will look like now.
I used to do this years ago by photocopying the original, and then the copy several times to get rid of midtones then set to work on a print and get rid of the rest with white paint and black paint/ink using brush and pen. I’m sure it could be done quicker nowadays but I’m not sure exactly how.Steve
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Hi, if it’s just the ship they want then take the background out in photo shop, then mess around with color and live trace in illustrator see if this brings you to where you want to be. might be a long shot as tones and colors in picture are very similar. may also be worth some color edits ahead of this to get some better defined areas.
hope this helps.
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