Thinking of changin from corel x5 to signlab any advice?

[Peter Normington]

MO
download the trial version of signlab, have a play with it and then decide.
cadlink(signlab’s makers) have many demo videos available, and worth a look at. http://www.cadlink.com
Signlab is more intuitive in my opinion for vectors, than illy or corel, as far as signage is concerned, and does many things far quicker and with less steps, shadows and outlines for instance. Applying cut lines is very simple, also, and traps and bleeds at a single click.
The latest version supports transparencies, even for vector drawings, so although not as versatile as using PS and Illustrator, is pretty good as a compromise in one program.
It has many features as standard, that are particularly useful to signmakers. Making serialised labels is just one example.
Peter

[Martin Pearson]

Think you will find any new software you buy will take time to get to grips with Mo, rather than rush out and buy signlab which you also may struggle with I would do what Peter suggested and download the demo version to try out. I would also download and try the demo versions of flexi and Vinylmaster as one of those may be a better bet for you. They all come with a good range of tutorials which always helps.

[Mo Gillis-Coates]

:lol1: check out you night owls….. Thanks guys, that’s useful, I have taken your advice and downloaded the free trial. I will have a play and report back.

I would never give up photoshop, it’s the main tool in my box, especially for creating visuals, but I’m finding nowadays, it pays dividends to create the visual as if I’m actually setting u the job. As an example I did some artwork for custom site safety boards yesterday, when the customer ok’d the work and purchased them, the work was already done so I just had to print. I find this is a time effective way of working.

Anyway I will give it a go and see what happens, it’s tough getting used to new software when you have been using something for so long. I still struggle with the zoom in and out differences between corel and PS…. especially as most of the time I use them both at exactly the same time on different screens (I have 3 screens on my system to work from, 2 for design and one for invoicing and internet etc)

The biggest problem I now face is trying to fit in playing with the free trial. Business, 2 kids under 4 and moving units doesn’t leave much time for messing about. But, I did take on a new member of staff so i should have a smidge available to me at some time

[Alan Drury]

I use both Signlab V9 and Corel X5. Signlab for vinyl, Corel for anything digital and heavy text content signs ie menus which are easily imported into Signlab for cutting. Corel is used for typesetting for litho and any origination which will go out to a digital printer via pdf, either publish to pdf from Draw or printing to CutePDF. Transparencies are no problem and the majority of bitmap work is also done within Draw . For more compicated stuff one click will put the image in Photopaint for more work and on completion closing PP puts the image back into Draw. Colour management is very good and what comes back from the printers never disappoints. I use several printers and companies for digital and none have problems with the files. Corel also has the advantage in as much as you can use a large page size so stuff can be done in real size reducing scaling errors.

I must add that Signlab V9 has some good tools in it for transparencies but I still go back to Draw at the moment basically because I’m more familiar with it and its easy to use.
Alan D