Make Your Own Decals

[ruzlkampf]

Because I just got home from work and haven't gathered my lesson plan together yet, I'd like to take this opportunity (while the class has Matt hanging out the window waiting for his bubble-gum and small change to fall out,.....and Javlin is busy out on the playground getting beat up by some girl) to say that I have unintentionally led everybody astray on how to scale things out on their monitor.

I'd hoped for somebody to call me on this before I discovered my error.....but this class of dummys has almost followed me like a herd of lemmings over a cliff. Even a fish with 'mad cows disease' should've figured this out. I have a 19inch monitor at home, and the method I described for sizing works the charm on it. I even did due-diligence and tried this method out on 3 other friends computers and it worked fine. BUT! Due to sheer (dare I say it,....dumb) luck they all happened to have 19inch monitors also. When I tried this 'scaling method' out at work with a 20 & 21 inch monitor(and I'm sure a 15-17inch) of course the size of the 'Paint' image changed as the monitor 'scaled' it to fit the dimensions.

Fear not! If nothing else I can improvise on my feet whilst running away from a hungry bear screaming my lungs out. I have devised a new sure-fire method that will work for all size monitors, and doesn't require any scanners,downloads, or any other special stuff. Same concept as before, different way of doing it. It's hard to make something simple(and a bit time consuming), so I'll be back on in a little bit after altering my slide-show a bit. Back in a few! Later, Russ

[N312RB]

Hey... is your idea called Illustrator?

[DaveJ]

Hey... is your idea called Illustrator? :thumbsup:

 

That would be the mega-bucks answer, I suppose. Last I checked, Illustrator was a rather spendy piece of software, isn't it? I like that he's using Paint since anyone with a PC already has it. Us Mac guys are outta luck of course.....

[N312RB]

That would be the mega-bucks answer, I suppose. Last I checked, Illustrator was a rather spendy piece of software, isn't it? I like that he's using Paint since anyone with a PC already has it. Us Mac guys are outta luck of course.....

 

Haha, I know... I was just giving him crap as we have been discussing Illustrator files for another project

[PhilB]

Russ,

Just discovered a new type of keyboard that may make things easier for everybody here:

 

Phil

[Out2gtcha]

Russ,

Just discovered a new type of keyboard that may make things easier for everybody here.......

 

HA!

 

PaaaaaaahhhhhLEEEZ! I would only need 1/2 that many buttons on MY perfect keyboard.................Ill leave you to figure out on ur own witch one I would use.

 

For the record Im tone deaf.

 

Cheers,

Brian

[Tallyho]

Can those of us who ride the 'short bus' attend? Heck, I don't even know how to use most of the features on my printer.

 

Fred

[PhilB]

Russ,

 

Serious reply this time!

I have a 23" widescreen monitor (Yes I DO have something bigger than yours!!! )but having set the "image/attributes" to A4 size here in euro la la land, whilst the "Paint" programme scales up to fill the whole screen the image(working area) is still A4.

I have done the hold up the paper test and I am effectively working on a piece of A4 on the screen. Is this what you were worried about or shall I just shut up and go drool in the corner?

 

Phil

[ruzlkampf]

WHOOHOO! OK, OK class.....you don't have to stand at attention when I walk into the room. YET! I'm in a jovial mood tonight cuz I swapped wires and stuff to get my printer hooked up to my PC instead of my Mac. Now I see and do what all you 'commoners' experience with your computers using Windows. So everybody stand at ease. (except for Big Matt who tends to get excited when we talk about 'nudey-girl' nose art....probably the only reason he's here? ....and starts catching some 'wood'. Sit down son,...you're distracting the rest of the class standing there with your 'chubby' protruding ominously......bad form young man. tsk tsk.) Speaking of nose-art,....I got some for you tonight!,.... along with a way to calculate scale on whatever monitor you happened to have stolen or had given to you. So everyone have a seat and grab one of those warm beers Phil tries to hide in his socks while I attend to pleasantries.

 

 

That would be the mega-bucks answer, I suppose. Last I checked, Illustrator was a rather spendy piece of software, isn't it? I like that he's using Paint since anyone with a PC already has it. Us Mac guys are outta luck of course.....

 

Yep, that's my intent Dave! I covered all my cool toys with a tarp, and only have what I figured is the most basic stuff everybody else here has available to them. You don't need to spend big bucks to make decals! Things are going to pick up a bit now that I went thru all the buttons in Paint, but if ya'll have any questions about 'individual-case scenarios' or problems you're having with anything I've discussed...feel free to bring it up. We have consultants here for that standing by.

Uuuuuh, while you're here Dave,and I have your ear.......thanks for installing those bathrooms (in particular the ladies room) here on LSP. I was able to use some of the new lewd 'original art' scrawled on the walls for my nose-art test image later in this update. You guys are the BEST!

 

 

Haha, I know... I was just giving him crap as we have been discussing Illustrator files for another project

 

Ooooooh yes, Russ giveth crap....with the full knowledge that he will probably receiveth! Finished that project today for ya. VERY impressive! I was using Illustrator today plying around with vector graphics and doing a 'pixellation test' to see what difference in resolution Phil gets with 91dpi versus my 68dpi Paint program. What an eye-opener! Even only 20+ pixels per inch makes a phenominal difference for the better when drawing images. I'm jealous! This means everybodys images here will look far superior than what I can show with my ancient version.

 

 

Russ,

Just discovered a new type of keyboard that may make things easier for everybody here:

 

Phil

 

Aaaaaaaah, I knew it was a wise move choosing you as my European Consultant/Female Form Researcher! Can I spot talent, or what?! When you finally graduate from here Phil, and go out into the world....I predict a brilliant future for you in corporate society and know you'll be making the big bucks. You definitely have the 'right stuff'. Good job! Here, I'll give you one of the cigars that was my share of the loot we pilfered off Big Matt when ya'll shook him down. Now go away kid,....ya bother me. ( )

 

 

HA!

 

PaaaaaaahhhhhLEEEZ! I would only need 1/2 that many buttons on MY perfect keyboard.................Ill leave you to figure out on ur own witch one I would use.

 

For the record Im tone deaf.

 

Cheers,

Brian

 

Yeah, we know. The whole class has to hear your yodeling when you're in our new rest-rooms trying to move a 'turtle' and drawing on the walls. Geesh dude, is the AC/DC or the Beatles you're singing? We're begging you for mercy.

 

 

Can those of us who ride the 'short bus' attend? Heck, I don't even know how to use most of the features on my printer.

 

Fred

 

Anybody here know what a 'short-bus' is? Where's my consultants?! Nobody else here rides a bus to school (OK, well Phil arrives in a limo...but his dad's in the mafia), we walk in a herd. There's safety in numbers from those who are 'dummy predators' and pelt us with rocks. I don't know what the features are on my printer either,....I just hooked it up today and have a completely different menu (very much reduced I might add) on my PC than the Mac. The only difference from an 'expert' and us dummys,....is an expert has screwed up every possible way there is to do so a hundred times over and knows what NOT to do. We'll all be experts when this is over! Come on in and join the fun. Sit over there next to Big Matt,....no he's not squirming, he's just 'excited'. It'll go away?

 

Okay class, everybody pay attention and quit slurping on Phils beer and and making paper airplanes....we got a slide-show here to watch.

[ruzlkampf]

Russ,

 

Serious reply this time!

I have a 23" widescreen monitor (Yes I DO have something bigger than yours!!! )but having set the "image/attributes" to A4 size here in euro la la land, whilst the "Paint" programme scales up to fill the whole screen the image(working area) is still A4.

I have done the hold up the paper test and I am effectively working on a piece of A4 on the screen. Is this what you were worried about or shall I just shut up and go drool in the corner?

 

Phil

 

 

Really? (actually I have a 24" Imac.....sorry, maybe when you get older, huh? heh heh. ) Wow, it looks like I'm going to have to do some research into this. Very interesting! Oh yeah, I was doing some A4 sized pamphlets today for a company overseas, and the metric size on my printers read out 210mmx297mm (or 21.0x29.7cm according to my calculations) I can't remember if that jives with the numbers you posted earlier in this thread. Does that look about right?

Have you printed out an A4 sized copy of what you drew on your image and seen if it matched up yet? It should, but I'm extremely curious to know if it worked out for ya. Sure makes it a LOT easier to scale things out if it does, but I have devised a method that I'm going to share that will work all the time, in every instance today. Doesn't require any fancy stuff, downloads, or special equipment. And it only costs one sheet of paper.

[Wurzacher]

Still trying not to decease from laughing... And in between these funny stuff is a tutorial, too!

 

Great work, Kampf, have been studying this from the beginning this afternoon. Never done anything in Paint, i have Photoshop but never learned it... So it is most interesting to start in Paint, even if my Paint is very different from yours, for my machine (and my Paint) is running on Windows 7 Home Premium. Yes, we here in euro la la land are very advanced in top notch techology! Your turn!

[ruzlkampf]

As mentioned earlier, I had to re-arrange everything in my dungeon to hook my printer up to my PC instead of the Mac. This allows me to see what ya'll see, and push the buttons ya'll have...more or less. The first thing I wanted to show tonight is a common gaff that a lot of people experience when working from the Paint program, and I want to help everybody avoid it.

In your haste to print decals, or say you open Paint to draw an image that you want to make a 'quicky' decal of,....you open Paint and do the 'attribute' resizing thing and have a 'canvas' that is the size of your decal paper, right? You draw your design in Paint and smugly hit the 'print' button expecting to have your printer spit out an exact replica of what you've drawn. You're on your way to becoming an 'expert', cuz you just messed up! Why?

You haven't done the 'save as' thing yet have you?! Until you do that....your image isn't a 'size', or a .tiff/.jpeg , named, or nuthin yet, and you've just confused your printer to tears! Here I have opened Paint and drawn a 'scale/ruler/measuring device' on a canvas the size of my paper. Notice it's just Paint opened, and it doesn't have a name because I haven't done the 'save as' ritual yet.

 

 

 

[ruzlkampf]

Still trying not to decease from laughing... And in between these funny stuff is a tutorial, too!

 

Great work, Kampf, have been studying this from the beginning this afternoon. Never done anything in Paint, i have Photoshop but never learned it... So it is most interesting to start in Paint, even if my Paint is very different from yours, for my machine (and my Paint) is running on Windows 7 Home Premium. Yes, we here in euro la la land are very advanced in top notch techology! Your turn!

 

 

Welcome Wurzacher! Feel free to participate and join in the FUN! Photoshop is nothing more than Paint on steroids with a LOT more buttons to make what I've done already take about 1/2 the time. Problem is, nobody wants to spend that kind of money or spend zillions of hours going thru the learning curve just to make decals! Paint program is much easier to learn, and is a big help in eventually moving up to Photoshop or Illustrator. Using all that complicated software to make what we're doing here is like using a 200kg hammer to smash a peanut. If I were to look for something just for making decals for 1/32nd scale planes....it would be hard to beat the Paint program. Perfect combination of resolution, simplicity,and compatibility with every known printer on the planet make it hard to beat. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what this program is capable of.......stick around, it's going to get VERY interesting!

We here on this LSP 'decals for dummies' thread scoff at advanced top notch technology. We prefer crudeness and simplicity. (well except for ScanmanDan,....our resident 'math dude'....who actually knows how to put batteries in his calculator, or even HAS a calculator!) We prefer to light our cigars with flint and steel, and even though everybody thinks we're dummys, have solved the secret to nuclear fission by clacking 2 coconuts together whilst drinking beer with a straw. It's an almost forgotten art that we are preserving for posterity. We'll reveal it to the world in due time, but we're too busy building model airplanes at the moment.

But I digress; Where was I and what the question? Oh yeah, I was showing ya'll how to screw something up. Let's move on.

[ruzlkampf]

Ok, we had just hit the 'print' button without saving our document first. The printer is confused, and wants to go drink a Mai-Tai on the beach with sunglasses on....but decides to give us a slap in the face first by giving us this; EGADS! That isn't what we had on our screen! Yes it is, we just hadn't saved it yet and told the printer what size it was.....so it guessed.

 

 

 

[ruzlkampf]

So, before you send something to print....always make sure you do the 'save as' first. Once you've 'saved' the document the first time....any time you open it after that and doodle on it and hit print while it's open will result in the printer knowing what size it's supposed to be. Here's how you do it again, and what I should've done before hitting that 'print' button.