setting up the rip to print

[4R Graphics]

K6 did not start the thread and his user name is K6media all one word.

Isign did you figure out what I was saying with the slice tool might save some time for you not having to canvas the image multiple times. As for when you copy, new, paste in photoshop photoshop automatically sets the new image canvas to what you have on the clipboard.

 

[johnnysigns]

I always use the rip.

 

[signswi]

98% of the time I tile within Onyx. You can select which tiles you want to print so if you mess one up you can just pull it back up from the archive and select that tile and it'll print exactly the same.

 

[k6media]

I will try and dig up the old post and post the link.

We take care of all of our design & paneling in photoshop and then bring the files 52" x ??" into our rip production manager and send them right to the machine. Some might think this takes more time then bringing them into the rip and letting it do the paneling... but we feel this is the safer and smarter way of paneling. This way we can panel with the template in the file and decided on how we can make a wrap as seamless as possible.

Pretty simple Process:

1) Open your Digital Auto Library Template in Adobe Ilustrator
2) Highlight one side of the vehicle with the white selector tool (COPY)
3) create a new canvas (FILE -> NEW)
4) PASTE (this will drop it into the new canvas still staying at 1/20th of scale
5) Keep the template highlighted. Go to the "SCALE" feature and change the percentage to 2000%. Once the scaling has been done you want to give the outline stroke a value of "10" as it will make the lines thicker when in photoshop.
6) Now you will have the template to size in this new blank canvas.
7) Now "export" the template as a JPG

PHOTOSHOP.
8) Open the template you just saved as a JPG in Photoshop
9) Make the file larger by say.. 40" wide and 20" tall to accomodate overlap. You can do this by modifying the Canvas size
10) Now that you have the template open... go to SELECT.. and select COLOUR RANGE
11) When colour range tool is open.. you want to click on the white area.. this will select everything BUT the actual template.
12) delete the white space so that you can see through the template.
13) NOW.. select the area surrounding the template... then go to SELECT -> Inverse selection. This will then put a border right around the vehicle template.
14) Now create a new LAYER FOLDER in the layers menu.
15) With the vehicle now highlighted you want to create a Mask... this will then allow you to design within this mask without things overlapping the template.
16) Make sure the folder that contains your design (the folder that has a mask applied to it) is in being the "vehicle template"
17) OK!.. So now you have a layer folder setup where you can put all your design in... ..... then you are going to design away... once the design is completed you are going to want to do the next step... blending and paneling.

BLENDING AND PANELING.
18) The key to a good wrap is to think of it being done in 3D... if you design the sides not thinking about what the side looks like when it connects to the back... then you need to put some effort into that =) So... You now want to right mouse click on the folder and disable the mask so that you can see all the overlap.
19) Clean up everything that extends beyond the edge of your template so that if you need to shift anything or if the template is slightly off you won't have things that look odd. Try not and have oddly ending images.. textures.. colours etc... try and think of the design extending beyond the edges you see in templates.
20) Bumpers... sides.. bumpers... sides... think about the back and front edges of the vehicle and how that will connect to the back. REmember.. great wraps are thought about in 3D... When edges blend really well it looks solid!
21) Design is done... blending is done.. I'm ready to print!
22) duplicate the "LAYER FOLDER" ... then you are going to want to compress the layers so that all you have is one layer! .
23) Create a separate layer folder that would contain paneling 52" wide.. you can use this for almost all your wraps.. create it once and re-use it.
24) play with your "LAYER FOLDER" with the paneling and position them to minimize your overlap requirements. (I really hope this makes sense).
25) Then you are able to basically highlight the same areas that you have in your layer panel and copy and paste. Then create a new canvas. REPEAT AND REPEAT for each panel.


I realize that may be extremely confusing.. let me know if there are any questions. Again.. some people might disagree with how we do it.. but we have really refined the process over the years and this works extremely well for us. We significantly reduce errors being made.. we use a lot less material... and we really put a lot of thought into paneling to minimize seems.

 

[k6media]

Thanks for the compliments by the way =)) .. I am realizing the end may not have made a lot of sense.. so here it goes...

-> Duplicating your layer folder allows you to not compress the folder containing all your layers. This eliminates the mistakes of compressing your layer folder and screwing yourself next time you open the file...

-> You want the duplicate to be flattened. NOT the actual original layer folder that you were creating your design in.

-> Once you are left with 1 layer for that side of the vehicle you can start paneling.

-> Create another layer folder (this can be re-used in all your wrap projects)

-> You want to create 52" wide x ??" panels.... to start with. So.. basically we take pink rectangular boxes and make them 50% transparent so you can see through them. Then move them around to appropriately cover the vehicle with overlap.

-> Once all the panels are in place.. then we use that as the way of showing us what we want to copy.

-> We then copy each of those sections into separate canvas and save them

"DRIVER1.JPG" "DRIVER2.JPG" etc...

hope that helps!