Tips for creating full size side art...................(Help me please)

[mike boss]

I just completed a Wonderboy project, and I'm happy with the results.
I've been asked if I could do a custom Joust project.
As is I've spent about an hour or two playing around.
I kinda freaked myself out.

When this art is blown up to the full size of a cabinet every imperfection is going to show.
What do I do ?

The obvious answer is work as clean as I can, but I'm still new to drawing in Photoshop/Illustrator.
Every tutorial I see talks about the face that you often scale down your work for web or print.
This is different !

I'm scared !

What size should I do, what DPI ? Any tips and tricks from the pro's would be appreciated.

[thatpurplestuff]

The higher resolution you work at the better (up to a point)... I would suggest working no lower than 300ppi at full scale.  Many people suggest no lower than 350, but I've had no issues at 300 on a wide variety of projects.  A good thing to keep in mind also is the distance that the artwork will be viewed at... since arcade art will be viewed up close you want to go high, but for example things like billboards are designed at a VERY low resolution (roughly 17ppi) because the imperfections get lost at a distance.

I always vectorize any elements by hand if possible, if not you can try livetracing in Illustrator and that can work fine in a lot of instances.  Photoshop's vector tools have gotten better over the years, and I actually don't even bother with Illustrator the vast majority of the time since Photoshop's pen tool can usually do everything I need it to.  The most important thing to remember is to be patient... it's easy to want to get everything in and moved around, but if you take the time to properly prepare each element you will end up with a much better final product.

I'm a bit picky since I design for a living, but it drives me crazy seeing super pixelated artwork or white edges from the magic wand tool.  If you aren't going to trace out entire elements, at the very least use the pen tool to create a vector mask for the raster element.  The magic wand tool will get the job done, but it ends up sloppy most of the time and with a little extra work with the pen tool you can get much better results.

[mike boss]

Thank you.
I appreciate the info.

I've started using the pen tool in Photoshop, and liking it.
However I'm sure my work is not the cleanest !  \
That is my prime concern when your dealing with an image @ 72" tall.

When using the pen tool I also use the pencil vs the brush. From what I gather (and please correct me if wrong)
with the Anti- aliasing the pencil tool makes for a cleaner look when filled with color. IE - the white edge you had mentioned prior.....

Again, I may be incorrect, but I had seen this online. I also read that when zoomed in the pencil does not look as clean as the brush, but in print it actually looks much like the paint brush.

I've been doing my outline, then creating another layer called "color." Selecting with magic wand, then moving down to the color layer to fill.

Any additional tips and tricks are welcome.

Thank you all

[mike boss]

Here is the Wonderboy project I did.
I've include my 1st attempt with the pen tool (the head), then the sample I wanted to copy.
You'll see my second attempt, then the final side art I ended up with.
I did this @ 11" x 17" @ 600 DPI.

[SlammedNiss]

I've found that vectormagic.com works a lot better for vectorizing artwork. You get 2 "tokens" per email address, and each vector costs one token. I use the gmail+ trick and it works great if you ever need more than 2 pieces done.

[mike boss]

I've tried Vectormagic before. I actually used the site when doing my Punch-Out  project.
I'll need to revisit them, perhaps it will save me huge amounts of time.
I was unaware of this Google+ trick til now.........needless to say I'm trying it.
(EDIT - tried it, LOVED it, thank you !!!!)

EDIT - I have perhaps a very novice question. Right now I'm using Photoshop. If I download a vector from vectormagic in say EPS/PDF . This would scale to most any size w/o getting pixelated ? Or would that only be true if done in Illustrator ?

[wooftangclan]

EDIT - I have perhaps a very novice question. Right now I'm using Photoshop. If I download a vector from vectormagic in say EPS/PDF . This would scale to most any size w/o getting pixelated ? Or would that only be true if done in Illustrator ?

If you open the file EPS file in Photoshop, it should ask you the dimensions and resolution you want it to open in. Set it to your actual dimensions and 300 ppi and Photoshop will "rasterize" the image at those settings. It will no longer be a vector image but instead a very high resolution image ready for print.

Also, research getting your colors ready for print. Depending on what method you are using for print, you may want to use CMYK. It's been a long time since I've applied my art studio major but I remember spending several days on a project several years ago and after being ready to go to print, having to change all my colors to PMS colors for several hours. Not sure if this applies to you but just a heads up.

[thatpurplestuff]

If you have a vector file (eps, pdf, ai, etc) you can open it in Illustrator and then copy+paste it into Photoshop.  As long as you make sure to import it as a "smart object" you will be able to make it larger/smaller without losing quality.  The only exception to this is if the vector content contains any raster-based effects like drop shadow, glow, etc.  It's best to just remove those effects and reincorporate them while in Photoshop.

You'll definitely want to design in CMYK.  Occasionally printers want RGB files, but I've found it's always a safe bet to design in CMYK and then if you need to convert to RGB for a specific printer the difference will be negligible.  If you were to design in RGB and then convert to CMYK, the difference can be much more noticeable.  Don't worry about PMS colors... that's a solid color matching system that you won't be using if doing prints for an arcade.

In regards to coloring, if you use vector shapes you don't need to worry about using fills since you can just double click on the shape and select whatever color you want.  Using a fill is also raster-based, so if for some reason you wanted to enlarge that element later on you would lose quality as it got larger.  Vector shapes avoid this problem.

If you have access to Illustrator, you may want to check out some tutorials for using the Mesh Tool.  It will allow you to create vector shapes that have the types of color transitions that are visible in the original artwork.  Then you could just copy+paste the new vector shape into Photoshape as a smart object and you're good to go.

[mike boss]

Thanks guys.
I appreciate all the info.

This is what I'm working on.

I'm just hoping when it prints, it prints nice & clear. It is being designed in RGB (I'll convert it all to CYMK later), and it's 300 DPI.