one day my prints will come

[rnojonson]

I know all you mouse mashers are into on screen art, are any of you into printing? Printing is why I do digital art. Printing in the real world (using a service) to get big art (poster sizes) can be painful. Many services use PDF, and Photoshop-Illustrator formats. Getting there from GIMP and Inkscape is not seamless. My local OfficeMax has a wide Canon Image ProGraf iPF6000s, the price is pretty reasonable 18 x 24 for $15 and 24 x 36 for $30. This is on Matte or Gloss heavy paper. Jpegs and PNGs are also in use. Since I mostly use Inkscape, I am concerned with alpha channels not translating well when going from vector to raster, I use a lot of blurs and transparency in my art. Any tips, tricks would be greatly appreciated.

[Jaws]

I got nothing rno. IIRC, Gimp will import a svg file and from there you can flatten the drawing for print. Maybe a Gimp guru can tell me I'm all wrong, wouldn't be the first time. I've also read Inkscape will output to PDF but not tried it myself. Googled around a bit late last night, wish I would have save some links. But almost all the talk was about Adobe products. Here's what I don't understand, if you output to, for instance a jpg, how does that affect a printed image as long as the alpha channel doesn't extend past the drawing itself? Maybe I'm too simpleminded.

BTW, one day my ship (starfighter) will come (in). But I'd be lost in space as I had to sell my astromech droid so I could build my new computer.

Ed

[rnojonson]

From what I understand Jpeg doesn't do alpha and the keyword is flatten. I guessing that flattening the drawing would make make those blurs and transparencies ok. Jpegs have that conversion loss thing going and if you resize larger you get pixelated. I've been flattened and pixelated, it's not fun. Now PNGs will handle alpha stuff, good for if you want to edit in GIMP. I don't know if layers will be intact. Hmmmmmm.............., flatten a raster (jpeg, png, etc.) before printing. PDFs seem OK but not all adobe products will open PDFs made in Inkscape, I will have to dig deeper into that.

I have no problems printing 8.5 x 11, it's the big wide formats that's hairy.

[rnojonson]

Let me clear up and digest a little.
What I need to do is all I can as a vector drawing, scaling is no problem. Inkscape's SVG is not Adobe's SVG, I'll have to test it.
Raster stuff will just have to be made print size (150-300)dpi to avoid pixelation. For a 8.5 x 11 that's fine, for 24 x 36 that's huge. Make a copy and flatten it for printing, convert to required format.

Now in my case I need to use an outside service for printing (OfficeMax or Kinkos). I discovered that sign makers often have large inkjets and printers who specialize in office promotions and posters. The key is do they do short runs (1-10 prints) at a good cost. And omg, test prints. The color on your monitor (subtractive light) is not what is printed (additive dyes) by the printer. Must be hands-on or in person editing or profile settings. I think they tend to print darker, not sure. Profile settings is when printer specs are read into your drawing software so that you can draw according to the printer's output (or something like that, I think).

All print services use Adobe products, so if your not compatible, you can't adjust it. But just by luck PDF, and PNG are as common as Jpegs. PS or postscript is iffy. Speaking of if's, if the majority of printing info is for text and photo printing, your drawings will print just fine. An inkjet doesn't spit on paper differently for text, drawings or photos.

What it look like? Inkjet on plain paper is like watercolor, not silkscreen. On matte paper there is a fine grain that is even, on photo paper it is like a photo, sort of, kind of. Much depends on the printer/ink combo.

Sorry to be so wordy, I will now return to the regularly scheduled pro..........ever wonder why spaceships all have light-beam teleporters to zap up stuff but doors after they land? It would be cheaper to lower the space elevator. Come on mister human, get into the can, so we can hoist you up! "Hey up there, I ain't get'en in your porta-potty!"

[Jaws]

I was just using jpeg as an example of my thought process as it seems photos are always sent to a printing service as jpegs. Never heard of a tiff being used as the file size is huge, nor are, of course, raw files used. You may want to check out Costco as I know semi-pro photographers that use their service, just a thought if you're a member on a cost-wise basis.

Now without question png would be the way to go as you already know it's lossless. And yeah, you have to think DPI instead of pixels when you output; my thinking would be 300dpi minimum, but increasing the DPI increases the final picture size, all very confusing to me. At least you have the option to create huge graphics with Inkscape but considering modern cameras with a 12 megapixel sensors are outputting a 6000x4000 images... well I think you get the idea.

Speaking of output, your monitor would need to be calibrated if you want the colors you are seeing on the monitor coming out the way you think they should be printed. Just like photographers need to create a icc profile, though I'm sure the equipment to do so is not cheap.

All the above has nothing to do with your problem though. May be time to get the pad and pen out. Oh wait, have you check the save as... dialog? There are options to save as different file extensions, plain svg is one of them.

I'll keep researching.

[rnojonson]

Man, I forgot PPI and DPI aren't the same thing!

You can get printer profiles from printer vendor sites, just have to figure how to use them. And I heard that GIMP AND OR INKSCAPE when you use CMYK, doesn't really save them in CMYK? Have you heard that? I did hear that CMYK is closer to printer technology output than RGB or display technology.

Costco, we have a BJ's, I'll look into their print service.

Plain SVG eh!

Thanks and don't look up under a spaceship if they don't take you, Imperial protocol to dump before the jump to lightspeed, you know!

[Jaws]

I read in at least 2 places to export a bitmap from Inkscape in your final size at 300 DPI, import into Scribus (possibly Open Office or whatever the hell they call it now) and exporting as a PDF. May be worth a try.

You can get printer profiles from printer vendor sites, just have to figure how to use them.

Don't think they'll be any good without a calibrated monitor.

And I heard that GIMP AND OR INKSCAPE when you use CMYK, doesn't really save them in CMYK? Have you heard that? I did hear that CMYK is closer to printer technology output than RGB or display technology.

True, that. But I've read Gimp has an extension now for true CMYK. Futher research forthcoming.

... don't look up under a spaceship if they don't take you, Imperial protocol to dump before the jump to lightspeed, you know!

Thanks for the heads up.  

[rnojonson]

(possibly Open Office or whatever the hell they call it now)

It's the back office or the not open enough office, sort of open office. I have moved to LibreOffice to escape the clutches of Oracle.

My main monitor is an old 17" CRT, the most powerful video-gun in the world. Do you feel pixelated? Well do ya? The copy person at OfficeMax said that most jobs she receives don't require much tweaking, wysiwyg. The guy I know at a sign shop said printers print a little darker. I could get fussy with this but I try not to. True CMYK is what I need along with a couple of good LCD displays.

[Jaws]

Clutches of Oracle

Wasn't that the title of a Starwars episode?

I retired my (the original) Viewsonic 17 a few years back after way over a decades worth of pleasurable viewing, but still going strong if not for the slight burn in with it's blaster gun. That's when I did my research and picked up a NEC 20" (IPS based panel) monitor. If a LCD is in your future, heavily consider these panel types for graphics work. I fear the latest LED panel monitors would be out of your and my combined purchasing power.

http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/s-ips-lcd-list.php

[rnojonson]

New LCD, let's see, trash house, do lots of community service, get Home Makeover to drop by and boom, new LCDs. Prices are reasonable for descent LCDs.

I have an win95 vintage laptop which I use mostly, has a 15" screen. It has good color but is lacking in power and memory. Alas the LCD that came with my HP desktop is half toast. I've run across lots of half toast LCD monitors. They have two circuit boards inside. One for power conversion and other for video or video and sound. Usually the video board dies (got power but no picture). It is so sad the cost of a replacement board is the same as a new LCD monitor. And they are not constructed to replace the innards easily.

How about a video projector? LOL, oooh! R2, what you do with that message? And I've always wanted a halo-deck.

[Jaws]

Some food for thought Arnold.

http://docs.scribus.net/index.php?lang=en&page=cms

http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/LittleCMS

http://www.littlecms.com/

http://docs.scribus.net/index.php?lang=en&page=moncal

Also in Inkscape Preferences there are color management and resolution output DPI dialogs. I'll leave the details to you. Inkscape also outputs a postscript file, which may be your commercial printer preference, but I'm thinking the final output you send to the printer can be handled better through Scribus.

Good luck, Ed

[sawer]

You could also try Sk1, it has all  kinds of options. You may already have it installed it works with inkscape for some things.
You can save as a PDF in inkscape, seems to work ok, or use plain svg.

[rnojonson]

Thanks, I am taking it all in. I have scribus and littlecms, but I need to understand them. SK1 I haven't played with either, will look at it.

I'll have to take a project and drag it to different conclusions, see which works best.

[rnojonson]

Hi all, I crossed a few things on my way to prints. I was having problems exporting some drawings from Inkscapes' svg format to png, then to jpg in GIMP. Seems I would get this black bar between cross hatchings everytime. I fixed this by converting the svg to pdf first in Inkscape, gotta love pdf. Then in GIMP from pdf to jpg, looks great.

I tried to convert to SK1's format in Inkscape but got an converter error.

The next test is giving the jpg file to a person whose printer is Photoshop fired, should be no problem.

[Jaws]

Nice 3D effect rno; looking sharp.

Going from png to jpg, the jpg can't handle the blur (shadow) area. That's why you're getting the black bars.

I'm sure you have ImageMagic installed, try these commands instead of pulling stuff into Gimp. In your file manager browse to the directory with your image, then tap F4 to bring up a terminal window at the bottom of the FM.

[mycomputer@localhost Pictures]$ convert g2848.png g2848.pdf
[mycomputer@localhost Pictures]$ convert g2848.pdf g2848.jpg

Still, doing it this way will cause the white frame around your drawing when converting to pdf and more so with jpg.

Ed