Artwork for a control panel and beyond!

[Shanew800]

First post, probably of many, so I hope it's not asked all of the time. Hopefully I can learn so I can be of help to someone else in the future since this is my first cab I'm building. Here's my first question if anyone has a few minutes. I've pretty much completed my artwork for the cab through gimp and I made sure to format it all in inches and convert to png. Is this what is needed to submit it to gameongrafix? I already had them print out a marquee but I didn't convert it to inches and he emailed me and found a similar piece of artwork and used it. While it looks good it has some of the art cropped out so I'm probably 80-90% happy with it. The rest of the artwork I need printed is custom so I have to make it right. Now my second question if you have another minute. How is the the artwork surrounding the buttons done? I'm no photoshop expert at all but I couldn't find any kind of template to drag into gimp to design. Just wondering how people did theirs and how you figured out the correct placement on a computer before physically putting it on a piece of wood. Thanks guys, sorry if this goes on long or sounds dumb! I've heard this is the place of all places to ask arcade build questions so fingers crossed.

[visivopro]

Yes the png is fine but if not they will definitely ask you to resubmit.

As for the art around the button, you just have to know the circumference of the arcade button you are using and design around that. For example, I have some sanwa buttons that require a 28mm hole but the button plus the bezel are 33mm so if I know my button takes up 33mm then my design has to stay out of the range of 33mm.

Some retailers list the total circumference on their site but if you can’t find it, use a digital caliper, Amazon has a great one for around $25 or I also have one from harbor freight that isn’t the most accurate for smaller things but would be fine for arcade buttons and is real cheap.

Hope this helps.

[Shanew800]

Thank you very much, that definitely helps. I'd never heard of that tool you mentioned from harbor freight but I'll look into it, have one right near the house. Thanks!

[meyer980]

Most of the printers I've worked with would prefer a .pdf file which has set dimensions. Images like jpegs or pngs can sometimes be compressed or have a wonky dpi set - so if not careful come out the wrong size.