side art into photoshop?

[iamscottyb]

I built a bartop arcade and I'm wanting to wrap it in some sweet artwork, but I don't know how to take my measurements from the cab and place it in photoshop so I create my sideart. any help would be appreciated. 

[lamprey]

Maybe I'm off base there but, perhaps, this will help. When creating an image in PS you can specify the DPI (or PPI - Pixels Per Inch). If you set that to say 300, then 300 pixels is one inch. You can use that calculate the size of the image you need to create. You can also you that to draw an outline of your bartop to help frame your artwork.

Depending on your bartops' complexity you may want to use another program to "model" it and then save that file as TIFF or something at 300 DPI (assuming that is what you are using for the PS image) and pull that into your PS file to use a "template." I'm not very good with modeling and graphics, so I tend to use Visio to create my outline and then export that to a TIFF and then load that in PS to help size the artwork correctly.

Cheers!

[Vigo]

To add to Lamprey. In photoshop, you don't need to work in pixels, either. You can do everything in MM or inches. Say you are making a rectangle shape and it asks you for the dimensions, it will probably default to 100 px by 100 px. In the type box if you want 15 inches, you just type 15in and it will convert. Same goes for typing in mm.

You also have rulers at your disposal. You can go View > Rulers, and a guide will show up. around your image showing you the size. Then you have the ruler tool. By default, this should be one of the tools that shows up when you click and hold on the Eyedrop tool. It will show you the size of any shape you make.

Did you follow plans to make your cab? I don't know your level of photoshop, but here a basic, practical method I would go with if you have the measurement image.

1. Make a new image that is a bit bigger than your bartop dimensions. So if your bartop has a side dimension of 15 inches x 18 inches, I would probably go with a new 20 in x 20 in image. (you can crop later). Set your resolution to 300 dpi to 600 dpi max. The bigger the dpi, the bigger the image.

2. Grab the measurements image of your bartop. If you have an image like this with the actual measurements on it, that would be ideal.



3. Make a rectangle shape that is the total dimensions of your side art. In the example above, you would make the rectangle. 570mm wide and 950mm tall.

4. Now paste in your measurement image. (Hope that it is "to scale").Transform the size of the measurement image to meet the rectangle size you made. You can turn down the opacity of the layer if you cant see behind the image. Now is time to find out if your measurement image is to scale. Pull out your ruler tool and start each dimension.

5. If your image is to scale, meaning all the dimensions line up with their measurements, then grab the pen tool and trace the outline of your cabinet. If it is not to scale, you will need to tweak your pen tool lines. Once your cab is outlined with the pen tool, you can delete the measurement image and the rectangle you made earlier.

Now when you photoshop your side art, make sure you leave plenty of bleed, or extra art that spills past the outline you made.

You can also make an outline from scratch in photoshop if you don't have a measurement image. You will just need to make basic shapes using the shape tools and the pen tool and put it together piece by piece.

[JDFan]

And to add to what VIGO said you also have Guidelines you can add that will place a straight line across the image at what ever position you specify (these are guides for placement so you can make sure for example that all of your button holes line up on the same position - Note: these guidelines do not get printed and can be toggled on and off so just provide some extra help when trying to line up an image since you can place a guide on both the horizontal and vertical at the place you want to place an image and then use those to assist in getting it in the exact placement you want.

For example using Vigos drawing you make your overall image at 570mm x 950mm then add a horizontal guideline at 211mm, 245mm, 675mm, and 750mm and you'll have lines across the image at the positions the cabinet side changes position then add vertical guides at 570-404 = 166mm and at 570 - 289 = 281mm and you'll have vertical lines that match up with where the cabinet screen section changes so the intersections of the horizontal and vertical guides will show where the corners of the cabinet sides line up !

Here's an old post about measuring a cabinet side for creating artwork I posted a while ago that gives some details that might be useful :

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,133119.msg1369829.html#msg1369829

[Vigo]

Agreed. Guidelines are an awesome tool, and once you get the hang of them, they are very easy. If you use the View > Snap function, anytime you use tools they will line it precisely up with the guide you made.

[behrmr]

These are great tips I'm bookmarking this thread!

One I would add is that you can save it to a pdf and then open in up in Adobe and print it.  When you print don't scale the document by choosing "Tile Large Pages" and select "Cut Marks" and set your Zoom to 100%.  Then you can print on regular paper and tape it all together to see how it fits.

[iamscottyb]

thanks for the help everyone. much appreciated