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Help needed doing the simplest of things
😳 right the problem iam having is making an image cuttable i need a burger and a cup and saucer for a cafe, i find an image off clip art disk then import it into Flexisign then trace i then delete the original image and am left with an image which needs tidying up (am i doing it right so far?) the problem is do i then export this entire image to an art program if so what do recommend Corel 12 etc? or can i still use flexi as i cant be able to find the pencil and eraser or anything, also i don’t mind drawing the image from scratch but which program do i use that i can draw with that makes a cuttable image ,,, sorry for all the newbie questions but i just cant seam to get my head round it, iam not looking for an easy fix i want to learn but am unable to find any tutorials on the net anywhere ( if anybody knows any where links would be fantastic,,
Yours stressed Justin… (?)
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6 Replies
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Not overly sure how you go about it in FlexiSign as its not a program I’ve used that much (well, I briefly looked, saw and buggered off back to CorelDRAW). As far as CorelDRAW goes, you can use the Freehand Tool.
Scale your image to a reasonable size, then just follow the outline you want with the freehand tool. As you say, once you’ve done that, you can clean it up by moving the nodes round, but you need to fill the shape as a solid and remove the outline to make it cut-ready. I’m not explaining this very well am I 🙄 Anyway, then you can either cut it from Corel if you have the correct plugin, or export as an EPS file to your cut package.
The way I started to learn was doing really basic stuff to begin with, simple shapes and trying to make them more complex and add more layers as I went along. To get good results on complex images I still take a fair while, so 9 times out of ten I’d send them to Andrew at Vectorwise, makes my life easier. Definately a skill to learn though, especially when you’ve got to have a sign ready for 8am the following morning and its 1am with no artwork done at all 😳 🙄 😮
Cheers, Dewi
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cheers dewi i think i follow most of that, so its gonna be a case of studying corel i think it might be best to give vector wise a shout about the images i need now then put the hole thing on hold till i can figure this out ..
also is there any courses for this or is it pretty much self taught
Justin…
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There are a few courses, mainly for Adobe Illustrator though and they tend to lean towards graphic design rather than signmaking. Teaching yourself is probably the best way, its bizarre but once you get the basics down, you can create some pretty good vectors on your own. The whole speed thing is an issue though, if it takes 3 hours for you to vectorise and Andrew would do it for you for about £20 and have it back to you in a matter of hours, its debatable whether the 3 hours you would have spent vectorising could have been better spent bringing new work in or making the signs for the work you already have in.
Cheers, Dewi
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Most software is supplied with it’s own tutorials. These are designed to take the beginner through a range of projects introducing all of the features of the software. Corel certainly does, as does Casmate, Signlab and all other drawing packages I have ever bought. I would suggest contacting the suppliers of your software to find out if they have any further tutorial packages they can offer you. Signlab and Casmate have some excellent tutorials so I would be very suprised if Flexisign didn’t also.
Contact your software vendor for the support you require 😀
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You can find the tools you need in Flexi
go to: View – toolbars – tick “path edit” this will give you all your bezier tools to work with. You can tidy up the image with most of the tools from this.
Flexi gives good support at http://www.scanvecamiable.com/
also there is a a teach yourself disc set available from Flexi – 2 discs with video illustrations. A really good investment – details from scanvec
Chris
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Thanks for that SAR i will give them a try, theres light at the end of the tunnel at last.
Justin.. 🙂
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