Questions about Super Punch-Out side art

[MaximRecoil]

I have a single NOS SPO side decal that I don't really want to use on my machine; I'd rather use a couple reproductions and keep the NOS piece.

The decal looks like this (the scanner wasn't big enough to fit the whole thing at once):



Now there are a couple of things about it that seems like it would be difficult to reproduce with any degree of accuracy. First, there are the gradients:



Those gradients can not be reasonably reproduced with vectors can they? If not, does that mean it would have to be printed from a raster image?

Also, the greyish silver colors on that decal are not really just plain silver/grey, they are a reflective silvery color, that if you look close, seem to have a very fine metal flake or sparkly/glittery quality to them, similar to what you might see on a reflective strip on a school book bag/back pack. That trait doesn't really show up in the scan. If anyone is familiar with a Punch-Out CPO, there are some greyish silver colors on that with an identical reflective/glittery look to them (no gradients though). You can see a picture of an NOS Punch-Out CPO here, with arrows pointing out the areas of the image that show that same glittery effect well.

What printing process can reproduce effects like that (not inkjet I'm guessing)? What printing process produced it in the first place?

[RayB]

Good old fashioned printing processes, that's what.  Non-digital. The graphic designer would have to create seperate "films" for each ink color. The printing machine would then get loaded up with the exact colors specified by the graphic designer, and then each color got printed one at a time. (White usually is just the color of the material).

Gradients can be done in vector art, it's just not easy to make the kind of gradients you have in there. Would take someone who really knows illustrator inside and out to know how to make those gradients. (They're not straight forward, since they both curve and scale)

[MaximRecoil]

Good old fashioned printing processes, that's what.  Non-digital. The graphic designer would have to create seperate "films" for each ink color. The printing machine would then get loaded up with the exact colors specified by the graphic designer, and then each color got printed one at a time. (White usually is just the color of the material).

I was wondering if it was originally silk-screened or done by offset printing.

Gradients can be done in vector art, it's just not easy to make the kind of gradients you have in there. Would take someone who really knows illustrator inside and out to know how to make those gradients. (They're not straight forward, since they both curve and scale)

Not only that, but the gradients look like they were done with tiny dots; but I don't know if that is relevant to how you would go about vectorizing it. I'm guessing that the dots are a result of the type of printing process used, rather than the original graphic design artist actually drawing millions of tiny dots.

[RayB]

The dots are a process called "half-tone" but I'm not familiar enough with those old fashioned printing processes to say how they did it, and whether or not the printing was silkscreen or offset. I'd assume it's offset.

Halftone info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone

There might be a photoshop filter to simulate this effect...

[GoPodular.com]

There might be a photoshop filter to simulate this effect...

http://www.photoshoplab.com/halftone-mania.html
http://www.highend3d.com/downloads/tools/photoshop_plugins/2635.html

I have a plugin for it, but I don't remember where I got it from.  Maybe the link above, maybe not.

[MaximRecoil]

I guess if you could vectorize the gradient, even without worrying about the dot texture of the original, just doing a smooth gradient, then if you had it printed using the silk-screen or offset printing process, they could use the halftone process for the gradients.

I assume that glittery silver is just a type of printer's ink that any print shop using traditional methods would have or have access to?

So what it looks like to me; and I only have a vague understanding of the silk screen process, and pretty much no understanding of the offset printing process (haven't really read up on it yet); is that one pass would lay down the black background, another pass would lay down the red that surrounds the letters, another would lay down the black outline of the letters, another for the glittery silver areas, then the white center of the letters (unless the material was already white, in which case that step wouldn't be necessary) and finally the halftone gradients. Does that sound about right?

Duplicating the halftone gradients in a raster file in Photoshop would be useful only if you were going to do an inkjet printout I'd imagine, which would be okay at best, and certainly missing the glittery silver of the original. Plus, if you were going with raster for an inkjet printout, you might as well just use a cleaned up high-res scan of the original in the first place, which would already have the halftone gradients in it.

[RayB]

I guess if you could vectorize the gradient, even without worrying about the dot texture of the original, just doing a smooth gradient, then if you had it printed using the silk-screen or offset printing process, they could use the halftone process for the gradients.

That's an idea... Won't be cheap though. They have to create the color seperations. You're looking at at least a couple hundred just for the "set up" costs.

I assume that glittery silver is just a type of printer's ink that any print shop using traditional methods would have or have access to?

You assume correct. And any place with such inks will probably charge more for its use than they would for standard inks.

...is that one pass would lay down the black background, another pass would lay down the red that surrounds the letters, another would lay down the black outline of the letters, another for the glittery silver areas, then the white center of the letters (unless the material was already white, in which case that step wouldn't be necessary) and finally the halftone gradients. Does that sound about right?

Yup! That's how it's done!

Duplicating the halftone gradients in a raster file in Photoshop would be useful only if you were going to do an inkjet printout I'd imagine, which would be okay at best, and certainly missing the glittery silver of the original. Plus, if you were going with raster for an inkjet printout, you might as well just use a cleaned up high-res scan of the original in the first place, which would already have the halftone gradients in it.

I would start with a vector version. Then bring it into Photoshop, and rasterize it at a nice high DPI (300 minimum). I'd then create the half-tone part using the Photoshop filter. Then I'd have it printed at an affordable place, with the silver being grey and I'd just live with it. Considering the costs in offset printing, and special inks, you'd have to do a run of many and sell them in order to recoup your losses.

[releasedtruth]

I would start with a vector version. Then bring it into Photoshop, and rasterize it at a nice high DPI (300 minimum). I'd then create the half-tone part using the Photoshop filter. Then I'd have it printed at an affordable place, with the silver being grey and I'd just live with it. Considering the costs in offset printing, and special inks, you'd have to do a run of many and sell them in order to recoup your losses.

That's a good route or you could just do it in photoshop and have just the sides printed on one of the large plotters most good printers have. It'll be a one of and only about 10-14 dollars a square ft. Throw a 3mil lam on there and it would look really nice.