USING ADOBE PHOTOSHOP AND SIGN MAKING

Adobe Photoshop and Sign MakingLevel: Beginner/intermediate

Date: June 22, 2004

A SIGNLAB TUTORIAL

Tutorial

Introduction--Getting the most out of your resources

This tutorial illustrates how to use PhotoShop together with SignLab to aid in sign making. This tutorial requires you to have a copy of PhotoShop, and basic level of PhotoShop knowledge.

See how to use Photoshop to enhance clip-art, text, and other vector objects without expert experience.

We are going to start with a very simple job, and then show some basic steps that can be applied for amazing effects.

This is the image we will initially create, and while it does have bitmap data, it can be printed at any size without modi-fication.

THE END RESULT

Required: Adobe Photoshop, SignLabSkill level: Beginner

Step 1

Working with SignLab and vector imagesWe start out creating our base text and clip art in SignLab.

We have added text, fit that text to an arc and imported a piece of clip art from the SignLab clip art CD.

Select all, and group.

We need to add a stroke to the selection. Using stroke tool, give it 0.04inch stroke (1mm) using the same colour as the fill (in this case its all process black).

CREATING THE BASE

Note: This is where SignLab strength are, this could be any vector artwork created in SignLab, eg. A scan that has been vectorized.

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Step 2

Enter Adobe PhotoshopSelect All and copy to the clip board, control-C.

Start Photoshop and create a new file. Under File menu, select “New”.

Once the new document is open, select Edit menu and click paste (or con-trol-V), it will prompt you to Paste asPixelPathShape layer

Select Pixel

You will see the SignLab text and clip art appear in the Photoshop docu-ment with a cross in it, this indicates you can resize and do other trans-formations with it. Don’t make changes to its size or shape, place it in the document by clicking on the tick in the task bar or right clicking on the image and select place.

Now open your layers palette F7 (or Window-Layer menu).

Note: Photohop automatically detects some-thing in the clip board, and will display height and width of the item in the clipboard , ensure it’s RGB color and your required resolution. I typically use between 150 and 300dpi depend-ing on the detail of the actual texture I want. In this example, I would use a higher setting of 250 for best results, as there is a lot of detail in the actual frog skin texture.

WORKING WITH PHOTOSHOP

Your PhotoShop Window should look like this.

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Step 3

Blending Options & Layer StylesSelect the blending options from the pull out menu of the layers Window.

You need to make sure that Layer 1 is selected (the one containing your image from SignLab). You can access the menu either by clicking on pull out menu icon , or by right-clicking on the layer.

Click the arrow to view the contextual menu

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Step 3

Blending Options & Layer StylesWhen you select Blending options you will see the Layer styles Window appear (right), on the left side of the palette, click on the Styles at the top to see a list of preset styles.

You can then click on different styles and should be able to see the differ-ent effects on the frog image and text.

These layer styles are created in the blending options, this tutorial will not

explain all the layer style attributes that can be set, there many books on Photoshop that explain this. One I would recommend is the Photoshop 6/7 WOW book, which includes a CD with many predefined styles ready to use. For more on this, see the “note” on this page.

The layer styles window

Note: One of the best resource for layer styles is Adobe studio exchange. This is a free, by registration, Adobe web site (studio.adobe.com) which is a great resource for all Adobe users.Once you have registered, click on the Adobe Studio Exchange and click on Photoshop downloads all files. You will see Filters, Actions, Plug-ins (it’s a PhotoShop candy store) and Styles, click on Styles (currently there is 732 available, most are more than one style when you down load it).

For this example I did a search for “Skin” in “Photoshop Files” and downloaded some that looked interesting (these examples are from Scaley Critters). clicking on the icon, gives you more info, and most times visual examples of the styles available.

Once you have downloaded these you should put them into your PhotoShop styles folder which is typi-cally c:\program files\ adobe\ PhotoShop 7\presets\styles. Styles end with the extension .asl.The styles will not be available in Photoshop until you load them by clicking on the style menu icon and select load styles. The new styles will be added to your existing selection.

Once you have selected your style you can save to a TIF or Jpeg file.

Step 4

...and now back to SignLabImport the saved PhotoShop image into SignLab.

We could just use the imported image as is, but depending upon the out-put size, we may have issues with the resolution of the image not being high enough. I want to ensure the best quality on my curves and avoid any jagged edges, so instead I am going to use the original vectors as my clip-ping path.

Tip: : If you save as TIF, flatten the file first (Layer - Flatten image), as this will make the TIF file a lot smaller. If you save as Jpeg it will automatically flatten the image for you.

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Step 5

Taking it to outputRemove the stroke. This will make my clipping region 0.5mm smaller than the actual image area and ensure that bitmap is larger than the original artwork, so the edges will all be defined by the original vector, not the bit-map.

Select All and go to alignment (Alt-K) and then Align both centre horizon-tal and vertical. You want the vector on top, so send the image to the back (control-B).

Select All and Arrange-Clipping+clipping, the image will be clipped by the original vector art work.

For inkjet output I draw a black box and send it to the back for my back-ground to get the final output.

For Gerber Edge I give this a solid prime white and then output directly on to black vinyl.

Note: Its important that you make sure all you original SignLab vector art work is grouped at this point.

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IMPORT BACK TO SIGNLAB

PREPPING FOR OUTPUT

Step 5

Taking it to outputWhile using clipping paths avoids problems with jagged edges in bitmaps, you may still get pixilation in the actual output if printed at larger sizes. To avoid this, inside the Print and Cut setup within SignLab, go to the options tab and you will see a slider-bar called “sampling”. This will auto-matically tell the RIP to resample bitmap images. Set it to about 20-25%-this should avoid any pixilation occurring in the output. Note: This does increase the RIP processing time.

Re sampling isn’t a cure all for all bitmaps, but is very effective when used with textured fills such as these.

That’s the basics, you can read on if you would like to learn more.

Enhancing the Image by Using Spot ColorThis describes setting up the frog to print as spot color with the Gerber Edge, the same procedure can be used to just change the colour to be used for straight process colour printing.

With the imported frog image selected, choose Transform-Render multitone bitmap option. Under number of tones select Tritone (3 spot colours). To help me see how this will build up, I set all three colour to process white to start with (don’t worry when the image disappears). Then I select a lemon yellow as my first colour.

WORKING WITH THE EDGE

I want to use my yellow for my high-lights, so I click on the curve dialog for my yellow.

Step 6 6

CurvesIn the SignLab curve interface, you can click on the curve and drag, by using the following curve I have increased the use of Lemon yellow in the highlights and reduced it in the midtones and there will be no yellow in the shadows.

WORKING WITH THE EDGE

Step 7

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0: 255 5: 010: 020: 030: 040: 23650: 060: 070: 10280: 090: 0100: 255

Second and Third ColorsFor my second colour I am going to select Apple green and I am going to leave that linear (IE It will paint the image as a greyscale using the Apple green foil).

For my third and final spot colour I am going to use Spot black. This will give me some contrast and depth to the image. I will not use any black in the highlights, and just add some in the midtones and shadows using the following curve.

Step 8

ADDING MORE COLORS

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Select an Apple Green for the second color

Apply spot black for the final color

Set up your curve like so.

FinishApply this now and use it in my clipping, when it prints it will now print using spot foils (white primer, lemon yellow, apple green and spot black). As mentioned, this will have more impact than strict process, the colours will give it more “pop” and you won’t get the typical rosette halftone.

Step 8

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Complete.

Adding a Soft Shadow on an EdgeIn this last part we will look at adding a soft shadow to the frog juice image. For output, try one of the shadow cast foils on the black vinyl it would have the desired effect.

To add the shadow follow steps 1 & 3 (missing out 2), we want the SignLab original art work with out the stroke. You can also get away with a lower resolution setting of say 150dpi for the shadow.

When you select the blending options, this time click on the drop shadow option menu in the left.

You can play with the controls and quickly get an idea for how they work. Click OK to accept.

Before we save we need to remove the original art work, but keep the selection. Control-click on the layer to create a selection.

Supplementary - 1

Select “drop shadow” from the list.

Tip: : if you control click on a layer 1 (layer 1) it will automatically make the original SignLab art work the current selected area.

Adding a Soft Shadow on an EdgeNow use Edit-Fill and select white (blending mode Normal, Opacity 100%), Photoshop will fill the selected area with white leaving just the shadow.

Select Layers-Flatten Image and save as a TIF file.

Import the shadow image into SignLab, and while selected, click Transform-”Render to multitone bitmap”. Select monotone and the shadow cast foil, leave the curve linear.

Since I am printing to black vinyl, and don’t want to prime the shadow, make sure you have setup the prime on the frog and text to prime solid white.

Then select all and go to alignment (alt-K), align centre both horizontal and vertical and send the shadow image to the back (control-B) and you are ready to print.

Supplementary - 1

Select “drop shadow” from the list.

Note: : For those users with Eye Candy plug-ins, you can apply this effect directly in SignLab.

Using SignLab with Photoshop ActionsThere are lots of effects in PhotoShop that you can download as actions (see the actions in Adobe studio exchange, there are 2952 text effects alone).

Actions are used often with styles to enhance them by applying additional effects such as filters (sharpen or blur). The principle is the same as with layer styles, except the sequence is often a little different.

Actions end with the extension .atn and need to go in c:\program files\adobe\photoshop 7.0\presets\photoshop actions\.

Supplementary - 2

The Photoshop “Actions” menuDisplay the Actions window in Photoshop with Alt+F9 or Windows-Actions from the menu

Note: This lesson requires the “Photoshop 6 WOW” book.

Using SignLab with Photoshop ActionsI am going to use an action from the PhotoShop 6 WOW book, with the text and clip art (sidebar) in SignLab.

The action I am going to use is called “399 Wow-Rusted & Pitted”, when you run this action you will see the following messages.

“This Action creates a Rusted & Pitted effect (like the project on page 399) starting with a Graphic on a Shape Layer. It also requires that you have the Wow Project Patterns loaded from the Wow CD.”

“If the Wow Project Patterns are not loaded, or a Shape Layer is not cur-rently active, Stop this Action now and set up your file. Once that is done you can click the Play arrow again at the bottom of the Actions Palette to continue.”

This action requires me to have a shape layer.

I copy my text and clip art from SignLab and then in PhotoShop do File-New and then Edit-Paste (or Control-V), when it prompts me for Paste As: PixelsPathShape Layer

I select Shape layer (if you look at the layer window you will see it auto-matically creates a shape layer with your text and clip art outline). So now I can simply continue with the action and when it’s finished I get the image to the right

Supplementary - 2

When the actions have completed

Start...

Note: Note: If you want to apply the clipping trick and keep the back ground, then first save the com-pleted image in PSD (PhotoShop native format). Then in the layers Window switch off the text / clip art layer (click on the eye in the left of the icon of the vector object), now do layers-flatten image and select OK to discard layers. Save the background as a background.tif.Open the saved PSD, do image flatten and save as a TIF and call this foreground.tif.Now in SignLab you can import the foreground.tif and apply the clipping and then import the back-ground and send to the back and you have a fully scalable image.