[Shadow-X-]

Hey, I'm just stuck in a rut here, I'm in the process (yet to be started...) of drawing my friend a picture for her b-day. I did this for her last year, and I'm gonna again this year, with a whole new idea. I find that personally drawn pictures are so much better than buying something. Anyhoo, I was thinkin' aboot drawing it on the PC since I can do fancy-fancy effects, and possibly be more detailed. I dont plan on using CPU generated effects such as everyone's beloved lensflare (hehe), or mosaic patterns and such. I plan on just drawing, using prolly smudge/fade at most to make it as real as I can to a sketch. now, what sort of tips would you suggest if I were planning on doing it on my PC, then having it printed lets say, at a local kinko's or a digital photography shop? I have boughten a 8.5x11' frame already, thus the picture needs to be about the size of a regular piece of paper.

So I guess my main concern would be, what rez should I make the pic, DPI, colour modes, size of original canvas, etc. It doesn't have to be sijun-erific since we are talking about my skillz. It just has to be good enough that when printed out (given the proper printer and such), it wont look jaggy, or patchy or blotchy with dots of colour.

Thanks for any info in advance!

Tak
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Just remember, when in doubt, even monkeys fall from trees sometimes.

[B0b]

get in contact with whoever u plan on using to output the artwork and see what their requirements are - they'll give you what res they want and if it needs to b an RGB or CMYK pic (remember don't start in cmyk then change to RGB - cmyk is 12.5K worth of colour and RGB is 16.7mil worth so u'll loose colour in the conversion)

@ a guess i'd say work with ur pic @ 300dpi and in RGB if u work slightly bigger than ur planned size then shrink it ur get a much nicer looking image

[breeze]

It's a birthday present, so getting in contact with them will ruin any suprise.

Try www.zazzle.com
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I went to write my signature, and now i've got ink all over my monitor!

[shawnhud]

Hey Shadow, I'm no authority and my opinion may vary from those of the pros here, but I worked in a print shop for 3 years and 300 dpi is fine. 200 would be alright, but 300 is a very safe bet. The only time you really want to up the dpi is if you plan on blowing something up. If you have a 12x18 that you want blown up 200% (24x36) then 600 dpi or so would be good as the resolution is being cut in half by enlarging it by said 200%. So with that said I would keep it simple and hand the printer a file that had your image at your desired finished size. That way he/she won't have to play with enlarging or reducing it. If you want to create it at a certain size and then resize it as Bob suggested, that's up to you. As for color modes, I'd stay with RGB. Hope this helped a little bit. Good luck.
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Put a muzzle on her Turkish, before she gets bit. You don't wanna get bit, do you boy?

[B0b]

[Inspector Lee]

I'd agree with everything said so far with one exception. I've found that CMYK files tend to print out with colors that are truer to what you see on the screen. Try a simple test even on a home color printer. Just make sure to choose a sample piece that has a full range of colors (especially saturated colors). Then print it out as a CMYK image and as an RGB image. I guarantee you the CMYK image will be more faithful to what you see on the screen.
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Smokey, this is not 'Nam this is bowling. There are rules.

[Shadow-X-]

Thanks so much for the tips!
Digital art seems so complicated the majority of the time. Oie.
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Just remember, when in doubt, even monkeys fall from trees sometimes.

[shawnhud]

Inspector Lee- I just tried that test here at work, and you were definitely right about the CMYK. Much more color.
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Put a muzzle on her Turkish, before she gets bit. You don't wanna get bit, do you boy?

[Inspector Lee]

Yep,
when printing from an RGB file, clean and saturated colors tend to be muddier and more muted than what you see on the screen.
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Smokey, this is not 'Nam this is bowling. There are rules.

[Herb]

Yeah, I printed something out at Kinkos in RGB and it was really washed out. Do you suggest starting out a pic in RGB and then converting to CMYK before printing? Or just starting in CMYK off the bat?
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"So...remember, whenya put down one mutha, you puttun down muthas all ovah da worhl." - Mr. T

[gezstar]

CMYK is def the way to go. Starting in RGB and converting is pretty much OK, but be warned that certain colours available in RGB (highly saturated ones usually) aren't available in CMYK, or on the printed page, so don't expect your print to be identical to what you see on-screen. 300DPI should be OK but if you can, push it up to 400/450 for properly good results, especially if you're using lineart/inks. Make it a TIFF file too, cos most printshops have no probs with those.

Gez

[breeze]