better transfer prints

[allan621]

For almost my whole engraving life everything I did was hand drawn. Mostly because I do lettering and its easier in most cases to hand draw letters to fit the area.

But I'm now starting to do transfers of more creative pieces. Letters transfer fine. But I'm having trouble getting sharp transfers that print well.

I've been using an HP deskjet with Epson transparency film. I've been making my own transfer liquid which works really well for more general solid black images. But the image below has some gradient grayed out areas that print as a group of hazy lightly printed dots. This makes for a sketchy transfer.

So the first question is the software. I have been using my iMac to capture the scan, then crop it, and use the photo editing in the photos program. Then drag it over to my pages program where I can size it, flip it and print it. Would a better piece of software like affinity or photoshop make a better image which would print better.

Or would I be better dragging out the lightbox and re-drawing the image, darkening the grayed areas prior to scanning.

Any ideas would be really appreciated.

Allan

 

[Leland Davis]

Allan,I don't know if this will help but it easy to try. Sandy Popivich told me to print to paper then copy that to transfer sheet, I don't know why it works but I get much better transfers than direct printing.
Good luck,Leland

 

[monk]

probably because you're eliminatingthe dither dots. i never tried a transfer that complicated. the work i've done-- i just convert raster to vector. any of the fuzzy stuff ? i'd just fill in on the fly. for me, theres much in the image that could simply be done that way. the garment material-- trying to cut that xactly as it is, umm big nightmare, at least for me.

 

[allan621]

flint - I'm not really sure what you're saying. Right now I print the image onto paper, then tape the transparency over the image and run it through the printer again. I think that was the instruction that came with my original bottle of White's transfer magic. If you're doing something different I'd like to know what it is so I could try it.

Monk - I think you're right about dither dots. I didn't know what they are but just read about them on google. The area I'm having problems with, looks like that could be the reason it won't transfer well.

Thanks

Allan

 

[Leland Davis]

Allan, instead of printing from the computer on to the transparency put your printed image on your copier then copy onto the transfer sheet. Like I said it may not help with the complex image your printing but it gives me much better transfer than printing directly onto transfer sheet from computer. I don't know why but it does.
Leland

 

[papart1]

I used to print to transfer from a scanned copy, and sometimes I still have to. But I use the affinity program and print from that after tweekage and they come out better than copy/print for me. paps

 

[allan621]

flint - okay, if I understand this right, I'm going to print out the image on the printer. Then take the printed page, put it on the scanner to make a copy of the printed image. The page for the copy will have the transparency film on it. I'll give it try.

paps - I'm going to get into the affinity program this week. The pieces I have set to do are pretty complicated and the Mac OS X photos program is okay but it has its limitations and I think I'm ready for somthing more. Thanks for the suggestion.

Monk, flint and paps, thanks for the suggestions. Appreciate it.
Allan

 

[monk]

good luck doing that engraving. forget the coffee, beer will settle yer nerves for that job !
btw, i know many of us would love to see that when you're done.

 

[Leeengraving]

I'm new to transfer as well, have had great success so far. only mistake I made was printing onto the wrong side of the transparency paper, once I figured that out I have been rocking every since. Some of the guys on here recommended inkscapes, has worked great for me, you can size your images there and mirror hem or put them in greyscale, best of al the download is free and plenty of tutorials on YouTube. I purchased my transfer stuff premade

 

[Leeengraving]

oh, forgot to mention, print your image, then cut to size your transparency, and tape it onto the image, run it back through the printer, saves money on the expensive TP.

 

[allan621]

Lee - thanks for the inkscape recommendation. I'm definitely going to head over there and give it a try.

Monk - Here's a piece I did a while ago trying out some of the bulino shading from the Chris DeCamillas video. It really an engraving sketch on silver, probably won't be sold or used. Its very rough because its been engraved twice. The first time didn't look right so I practiced the bulino cuts and then recut it. I still do mostly lettering on jewelry and hollowware but I'm starting to spend more time doing the more complicated pieces. When I get the image right I'll cut it and post it. Probably won't be for a month or so until I can start it.

Allan