What is the best Software for Digital Printing? help!

[Shane Drew]

As Rob says, photoshop is easily the market leader amongst graphic design people, but I use Corel X3 myself.

I find it pretty easy to use, heaps cheaper to buy and I’ve only ever had consistant problems importing Photoshop cs2 or Illustrator files saved as eps 😕

Its really what you know best though. I wish I’d learned photoshop in the early days as it probably has the most support from other teaching/add on sites, but that said, I can design most jobs in Corel that gets me out of bother.

Corel is probably more popular with most companies without graphics training, and that is basically my client base, and any client that does have photoshop, most send any files as an ai exported as an early photoshop or adobe version so I can read it.

The problem with importing dxf files, if the nodes are not closed, you’ll have lines going off in all directions. Not sure how Photoshop treats them though.

Hope that is of some help.

[Mike Grant]

I use Corel, again as it is the only package I have used, but I do find it does everything I need it to do.

[David Rowland]

OK, I am still trying to work out what you are trying to do, is this small intricate work say dark black lines onto glass or flood fills of colour onto glass?

Freehand is a waster, bought out by Adobe recently so they may re-vamp it.

Illustrator will read autocad formats better then Corel in my view, Corel however will read a lot more formats but its not that important. It’s all about asking for artwork in PDF or bitmaps formats to do the work. Corel will read and convert to the page but sometimes makes a mistake so checking everything is a must. Illustrator has better colour correction over Corel now and we are on Corel X3 (13) now. We are Corel workflow and enjoy it… however its all about ‘training’ and ‘learning’ so that is the bit you need to start working on now, have you any experience in the software so far?

To be honest the only printer I have seen print to glass is a Zund, so cant speak much more then that.

[Bill McMurtry]

I use Corel X3 and Photoshop – I can’t imagine a job that this combo can not tackle.

[owenbooth]

Valuable feedback so far guys. Yeah, initially the printer will be used to print a black band of varying widths (10mm +)around the edges of glass windows for boats/display units etc. But once the market picks up we hope to be able to print Digital Photos onto the glass too. So mainly flooded colours with a logo or Toughened stamp in the odd corner. I assume Coreldraw 12 is similar to the Corel X3 you talk of?

[Shane Drew]

X3 is better than 12, but 12 is very good anyway.

You getting a UV flat bed printer I guess?

A shop on the Gold Cost purchased a UV printer to print murals and photos to glass. Cost him $1m and he needs it working 24/7 to make it pay. Glad he’s paying the lease on not me 😕

[owenbooth]

Oh okay, I’ll have a look at that thanks. Yeah it is a GlassJet flat bed printer from http://www.diptech.com. Painted glass either goes through an IR Lamp dryer, or air dries before the ceramic ink can be fused onto it in the toughening process. I mask everything up manually at the moment, so it should save a lot of time. I think it cost around half a mil? Not sure, I’m not the one being invoiced!!!!

[owenbooth]

I’ve downloaded Photoshop CS version 9, as well as Photoshop 7 and neither recognised the DXF file format. I’m leaning towards Illustrator or Coredraw I think.

[John Childs]

Illustrator. 😀

[Rod Young]

quote owenbooth:

Hi guys. My department at work currently uses a good old screen printer for painting glass for Architectural use, Kitchen splashbacks, shower doors etc. We are due to receive a digital printer in May and I need to purchase a decent Graphics Application to process and edit image files before importing them into the Proprietary ripping software.

-Which software would be able to import the largest number of other file formats I am likely to be receiving from our clients? (DXF, and PDF are the most popular)
– The main use initially would be for applying borders to Automotive glass units (mostly black), as that is the bulk of our work. So I imagine an AutoCAD type element with precise scaling would be necessary.

Valuable feedback so far guys. Yeah, initially the printer will be used to print a black band of varying widths (10mm +)around the edges of glass windows for boats/display units etc. But once the market picks up we hope to be able to print Digital Photos onto the glass too. So mainly flooded colours with a logo or Toughened stamp in the odd corner.

Hi Owen,

From what you are describing, it sounds like you need either SignLab or Digital Factory, either of which will provide the desired range of file import support, especially DXF and PDF (including PDFs from various "free" PDF generators). Also included is generation of screens for high resolution imaging.

With respect to DXF files, does much of your work involve variable stroke thicknesses? That might be an issue because there has not been previous expressed interest in this support. Can you send me some sample DXF files in order to confirm that the software will serve you as expected? Anything you send should be marked "ATTN: Rod" and addressed to techwww@cadlink.com .

FYI, much of our previous support requests have been centred about automated processes for applying tool paths to imported DXF. However, this is not to disregard the OEM potential for other applications. We have a fellow local to you that is somewhat accomplished with respect to digital printing. Perhaps I can put you guys in touch?

One last bit. You mention that you are familiar with Paint Shop Pro, and there is no need to disregard your previous experience there. I will note that the Print and Cut Manager (the RIP component of SignLab and Digital Factory) is capable of serving as print destination for third-party graphic software applications. So essentially you can File >> Print out of Paint Shop Pro directly to the Print and Cut Manager.

Cheers,

Rod at CADlink

[owenbooth]

Hi Rod. Since the inital post, I’ve managed to download the user manual for the Printer coming. It is a long-winded process, depending on what file format the customer provides.
-If it is a CAD file, it is edited in AutoCAD, all entities are closed, and then exported in DXF format.
-The Graphics App then imports it (DXF) and flood fills where appropriate, and each colour is then saved to a different layer, with a different file name. I believe they are saved in TIFF format.
-The company, Diptech, provides a program called Wasatch SoftRIP which then RIPs the TIFFs into a format the Printer can use.

I’m awaiting word from DipTech as to which package would be the most appropriate. Most of our customers supply drawings in DXF format, a few in PDF. The bulk however are supplied as wooden, or even paper (nasty) templates! I intend to digitise these with our Proliner vectoring tool, and save to disk.
We have most of the software we need already, it is just advice I’m after as to which Graphics Application would be best for importing the most common file types we handle.
thanks and regards,
Owen

[Stephen Morriss]

Hi Owen

I use Corel quite a lot and it can import and export DXF file ok – ish

Corel can make a mess of polylines when exported to dxf, they become a series of straight lines between the points, you can get a bit of software to sort this but I can’t remember what it is at the moment.

You can get round it but it’s been a few months since I’ve had to do it so I can’t tell you exactly how.

Just thought I’d let you know before you hit the problem.

In case you didn’t know there are a lot of cad programs that can work with AutoCAD drawings so you don’t need to spend a fortune on AutoCAD, I found CMS Intellicad to be about the best.

Steve

[owenbooth]

Thanks Steve. We’ve chosen Adobe Illustrator, and AutoCAD as we already had it.
regards,
Owen