resizing artwork, how?

[Ghoul]

I'm getting to the point where I need to do artwork. At this point I want to do my own.

I gather that 300dpi is the sweet spot resolution for clarity when you are getting a place such as kinko's to print out your artwork.

I know my way around photoshop fairly well (not so much illustrator or other major programs). I have several pieces of art that I like but they are all too small on a 30x15 300dpi image. Can anyone tell me or point me to a tutorial on how to resize images without losing a ton of quality? I know several people around here who have done their own artwork must know how.

[menace]

I too am looking into this and all signs point to tracing it in adobe illustrator so that it can be resized to infinity if need.  Since you say illustrator is not your strength, there are some tutorials on the web (type "using adobe illustrator" into google and some pop up--I just did this )  basically you want to import your image, lock its layer then redraw it in illustrator so that it goes from being a non-scaleable image to a scalebale one.

As an aside, you might also pull artwork off of arcade flyers since they are stored on the web at much higher resolutions than just jpg's lying around. I got a ton of really nice ones from here: http://www.arcadeflyers.com.  Good luck and feel free to coontribute back since I am still looking for a real nice q-bert and a real nice centipede that can be scaled well.  If you are interested I have a full size burgertime marquee and a full size tron sideart with a few blemishes--at close to 4mb per file they blow up real good! (SCTV fans can chuckle at that)

[Darkstalker]

Anytime you make a raster image larger you are going to lose quality, it's unavoidable...The program has to "make up" new color information for all the new space.  Photoshop happens to be the best program for doing raster images (TIFF, JPG, BMP, etc) IMO, and Illustrator or Freehand are good for vector based drawing.

The nice part about vector is it will scale without any loss in quality because it's a collection of shapes and points, not individual pixels.  Downside is 99% of the artwork you get off of the net is raster based.

You have two options here, one menace already mentioned.  You can take the raster image, and "trace" it to make it into a vector based picture.  This isn't 100% accurate, and it's helpful to have a fast computer with lots of RAM, or a lot of patience as an alternative.  Once you are done, you will have a picture that will scale to any size you need and always retain the same quality.  This is the most difficult approach, but comes out with the best scaled results.

Your other option is to just rely on the resampling in Photoshop to get the job done.  The only thing you can do is choose which image resample you want to attempt.  I normally get the best results from Bicubic resampling, but depending on the image, you might want to select Nearest Neighbor.  My advice would be to try both and see which gives you the best looking results.

[Smittydc]

Menace, there's a decent q-bert on my control panel that wouldn't be too hard to clean up further if you want.

All of the art is set up as individual objects if anyone wants to grab them for their own work (and resize them for that matter).

Illustrator file: http://www.becauseitsfun.com/Mamefinal.ai

[menace]

Awesome control panel!  And thanks for the link to the image--d/l'ing now!  This should satisfy the girlfriend--She's a huge q-bert fan and one compromise was that q-bert be pictured predominantly in the sideart!

With all thos pics do your controls get "lost" in there?  Just curious--It would blend well with my "mame takeover" theme.

[eightbit]

Menace, there's a decent q-bert on my control panel that wouldn't be too hard to clean up further if you want.

All of the art is set up as individual objects if anyone wants to grab them for their own work (and resize them for that matter).

Illustrator file: http://www.becauseitsfun.com/Mamefinal.ai

Very nice work but why are your button holes so high?

[Smittydc]

eightbit:  I like to rest my wrists on the panel -- cuts down on the carpel tunnel.   I also wanted to keep the lines of my original cabinet (space invaders deluxe), which leaves me with only 25"x7" to work with.  It's actually very comfy this way.  

Menace - I think the controls look great with all the art.  And I used an underlit trackball, which adds a nice effect.  Besides, one thing I realized is how little time anybody actually spends looking at the control panel.

I'll get around to posting pictures eventually -- waiting until I finish my last couple swappable control panels... (including an MK bezel with all the moves on it )

[eightbit]

Ok another question, why the odd button down low next to p1's stick?

[Smittydc]

I wanted to have 4 buttons for some player1 games, but didn't want it to get in the way when I was playing the 95% of games that don't use 4. Also, I'm used to the "thumb" button from mortal kombat.  

I'm always surprised by layouts that put 6-8 buttons crammed together when most games don't use more than 2 (except for fighter games).  Do people map the fire button to one of the lower row buttons or do they get used to reaching over unused buttons to fire?

Every CP is a compromise of design...

[eightbit]

I wanted to have 4 buttons for some player1 games, but didn't want it to get in
I'm always surprised by layouts that put 6-8 buttons crammed together when most games don't use more than 2 (except for fighter games).  Do people map the fire button to one of the lower row buttons or do they get used to reaching over unused buttons to fire?

Every CP is a compromise of design...

I have 6 buttons, button 1 is the bottom left.