printing a marquee

[deano7]

I am not quite sure how to scan it and then upload, but here is a reduced version of the file that I can upload.  I have the actual scanned image that is greater than the 2MB limit on this board.  It looks really good though, even up close...  Thanks to all on the board who contributed to the spirited debate!

[ubiquityman]

Your marquee looks good.
If you could, just scan the part around the "O" in MELTDOWN at 400 DPI and crop so it's just 2 inches, then attach to a message as you've done.

[D_Harris]

Well, if you have to use a magnifying glass to see jagged edges then for all intents and purposes there are none.  

I would ask what is the best DPI/LPI for artwork, but that would depend on what kind of artwork we are talking about.

Side-art and marquee artwork is typically low in detail.

Nevertheless, since I'm working on a unique art project where the art will be along the lines of that seen on the cover of Heavy Metal Magazine, I would like to get opinions on what kind of hardware is needed for that.(I have my eye on a printer if I can't get it done anywhere else).

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

I couldn't agree with you more.  I was just trying to compare apples to apples.

In terms of printers, how many prints are you going to do?  I have an Epson 6-ink printer to print on CDs and it's a love-hate relationship, but mostly hate.  Most inkjets nowdays have a head cleaning cycle (aka intentional ink wasting cycle) so that if one uses the printer infrequently enough, there is more ink that goes to head cleaning than to the printed material.  Some inkjets signal the ink carts as empty based on number of pages printed even when there's 50% ink left.

If you print frequently enough I can understand the convenience and possibly cost saving to print it yourself, otherwise, I would send it out.

In terms of printing, you should be OK with 2GB of RAM, but you will need a chunk of HD space for the spooler to create a temp file.
Your printed image is going to generate 24x36x2400DPI^2x3 is 13.9GB of raw data.  Most of that will get spooled to the HD.  A fast computer will help a lot for jobs that size.

I know that it's been 1-2/3 of a year since my last post in this thread, but just came across it again and wanted to tie things up.

I never could find a good printer for my purposes. That is, a printer that was reliable, did waste ink, and able to print the best inks onto vinyl at a reasonable cost, so I put the project on the back burner.

How many times I'll have to use the printer is unknown at this time, but I really want to be able to print out my custom art work myself, without having to send the file to someone else.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.