Anybody tiled a job to a vj1204 using Photoprint

[jimgoodwin]

I want to qualify this and explain I am not a pro when it comes to signs and banners, I am a highschool teacher with a really fun program. I teach everything from screen printing, to studio photography, laser engraving, cut vinyl, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. We make over 100 banners and signs and screen print over 10,000 shirts a year.

Last year I stepped up my program a bit and purchased a VJ1204 printer which has made a big difference in our quality of product we can turn out. Students have been making tons of banners over the past year but I thought it was time to try printing stickers and do a wall mural. I usually jump in way over my head, so here goes...

I am placing a 233in x 83in graphic on a concrete wall. Using Arlon DPF8000 (only 30in wide) laminated with oraguard 210. I figure 9 vertical panels printed at 28" with a 1 inch overlap on each edge.

Problem I am getting is that my version of Sai PhotoPrint has no options for tiling (there is no tiling tab at all) so I figured I would output the files into individual PDFs using Illustrator's tiling dialog, then just manualy flip every other one as I output the files.

Has anyone else tried this with a VJ1204?
Does what I am doing make sense or am I way off base?
Anything else I need to think about as I do this project?

Thanks for the help everyone! I will post a picture when we are done, I am really excited to see it come together.

 

[FrankW]

The only PhotoPRINT (SE) not available with tiling can be upgraded with the tiling feature. I don't know the tiling dialog in Illustrator, but with the PhotoPRINT-Tiling option an overlap can be set or tiling marks.

 

[jimgoodwin]

Frank, I know that it is upgradeable, but I am blessed with working for a school district. After filling out the forms to request the purchase of the upgrade, and getting the purchase approved, I then have to submit more forms for a software installation request. After a few weeks someone may be able to come install it... the beauty of bureaucracy.

As for my Illustrator idea, it was a bust... I made an awesome file that I thought worked perfect, but upon further inspection, I realized it was smaller than it should have been. I forgot Illustrator documents are limited to 227.54 inches wide, I am about six inches short.

Dang.

A bit of a headache but a fun challenge. I know Photoshop won't help me here, I may try InDesign... Anyone else have an idea (other than buying a proper RIP or making the graphic smaller)?

 

[D&Tgraphics]

Couldn't you just open your file in photo print, make a big rectangle the size of your first panel, put it over the beginning of your print, mask out that area, print, unmask, move the rectangle over to the next tile location, mask, print, unmask and repeat? Just make sure to leave in the overlap. I think I have done something similar for some reason at one time.

 

[jimgoodwin]

Dennis, I can't do that with my version of photoprint, it is just too stripped down to have option to even create an overlap. I fear trying to make it work from within Photoprint would cause issues of misalignment.

I did have a computer with Flexisign on it, but it didn't have Acrobat loaded on it, so I couldn't print to PDF from that computer.
I ended up bringing it into Photoshop and manually cropping each portion, giving me 8 files, each 28 inches wide and a final 17.25 inch wide file that will hopefully all perfectly align when I am done. I will go in and print it tomorrow. We will see what new roadblock I run into...

 

[D&Tgraphics]

What I meant was you would manually have to set your overlaps. It sounds like you pretty much did the same thing in PS. Good luck. I hope everything works out for you.

 

[GAC05]

Frank, I know that it is upgradeable, but I am blessed with working for a school district. After filling out the forms to request the purchase of the upgrade, and getting the purchase approved, I then have to submit more forms for a software installation request. After a few weeks someone may be able to come install it... the beauty of bureaucracy.

As for my Illustrator idea, it was a bust... I made an awesome file that I thought worked perfect, but upon further inspection, I realized it was smaller than it should have been. I forgot Illustrator documents are limited to 227.54 inches wide, I am about six inches short.

Dang.

A bit of a headache but a fun challenge. I know Photoshop won't help me here, I may try InDesign... Anyone else have an idea (other than buying a proper RIP or making the graphic smaller)?

Scale down your drawing in Illy and then scale back up in Photoprint.
To make it easy work in half scale then print at 200%.
For more control on the placement of seams I'd use clipping masks for each panel and skip the print tilling dialog.
I'd also reduce the panels just a bit so you have some unprinted margins outside of the overlaps on that 30" material. A quarter inch on each side will give you some wiggle room for tracking errors.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[John Butto]

Open illustrator and give yourself 9 new pages, because 233 divided by 28 gives you 9 panels, make a box on your first page of 26"x88.5 with no strokes or fill selected. Place this over your graphic on the left edge and hit clipping mask. Allow for overlap and take that clipping mask and drag it to one of your 9 windows and save as an .eps, because flexi photoprint likes those files. Repeat until all the artwork has been paneled. Open flexi and print each panel with it centered in the 30" wide material. You will have enough overlap by using the 26" size because 233" divided by 9 is 25.8". Or make it 27" if you want more overlap. I hope I did the math right.

 

[jimgoodwin]

Thanks guys, I like those ideas a lot. I think finding a real RIP or upgrading PhotoPrint is moving up my priority list if I continue doing big prints like this.

Today I went into school and printed the first panel... well almost, the edges of the media ended up hitting the print head and making the print all streaky... should have adjusted the head height up a before printing. Hopefully my re-try tomorrow will go smoother.
Also, I'm thinking of going into a signshop and asking for some help with the laminating... we use a Big Squeegee, but I think this would probably be better if we used an actual laminating machine. That is next on my list of things to purchase for the classroom (after a proper RIP).