Printer

[Dani Girl]

Hi all.

Hope everyone's well.

I've just been learning to design on an app on my phone which has an S-pen and it works great. I've even gotten an email reply from the app makers as to how to print actual size. Now my printer is the downside. I am able to design with 10x the precision that my printer is able to print. I think I'll try to find if improvements are out there by searching for a printer with a higher dpi (dots per inch). Has anyone investigated this before me?

Danae.

 

[DaveAtWeirs]

I had a similar issue with my printer, kept getting the thinner lines and edges coming out as little dots. I found that making the image twice as large and then, when sending it to print, telling the printer to scale it down 50% made the lines come out nice and sharp while still being at the right scale. It's kinda dumb but for whatever reason it worked

 

[Dani Girl]

 

[mitch]

Hi Danae! I’m not sure why you feel the need to transfer every last shade line and dot anyway? The basic construction lines and maybe a few hints to locate the details has always been plenty for me. Perhaps you’re chasing perfection of something with little practical use. MHO, YMMV…

 

[Mike576]

I agree with Mitch, I like my transfer to be a basically guideline, all the major outlines, some main shading lines to show flow or main feature like eyes mouth etc for bulino. The rest is done referencing my drawing and free hand.

 

[Hobo654]

@Dani Girl please could you show how to print actual size with the s-pen please

 

[martin850]

Ive got a s pen which app and how do print actual size? Please

 

[monk]

i'm little help here as i agree with mitch. my transfers had little beyond the basic spine layout. all the rest was just done on the "fly" as some would say. i think results were more spontaneous that way. for me to follow all those xtra lines would be drudgery. i truly hope you find an easy answer to yer problem.

 

[Dani Girl]

OK so I've been asked to show how to print actual size with an s-pen app. I'm using concepts and have paid for some basic features (which you have to do for each device if you want to use it on phone and laptop or tablet).

Concepts app looks like this and here's something I've drawn on it

 

[Dani Girl]

the app does some good videos including one about making a floor plan which explains scaling well

I've been setting the bed to A4 and stretching and shrinking the engraving design to the size I want. you can select MEASURE and then the size of your strokes displays as you draw them. I draw a line to the desired size and adjust the drawing to suit using opacity reduced so I can see both.

then press the up arrow to export/save. select A4 in my case (or it may display as custom) choose top image quality down the bottom and save. open the file, click the printer icon, select print actual size, print.

it's an easy drawing app to learn, I enjoy using it. the instructional videos on YouTube are great.

 

[Dani Girl]

I've found another print setting under the normal print settings that says use system info, I can double the dpi from 600 to 1200. I don't think I'll get better than that.
happy

 

[Dani Girl]

I had a learning curve using it.

point one being if you want to work in vector use the far left eraser called SLICE

if you use Soft mask which is an eraser with soft edges or hard mask which is an eraser with hard edges then when you export to vector all eraser marks show as white blobs in other software. but you can still export in one file type which only counts what you can see (black or colour).

another thing is to go into settings and tell it you want finger touch to only move around the drawing and the pen only to draw lines.

 

[mitch]

Stop dodging my question, young lady!
;-)

 

[Goldjockey]

I've found another print setting under the normal print settings that says use system info, I can double the dpi from 600 to 1200. I don't think I'll get better than that.
happy

Lovely work Danae. I experimented with Concepts for vector drawings, but found the program difficult and limiting to work with. It’s very encouraging to see what‘s possible, and you’ve really done beautiful work.

Edited: Question withdrawn.

 

[monk]

dani: i used to use an app called, "ticonderoga". it had a built in eraser. i later switched to a mechanical app called " scripto .3mm. seriously, your work is quite nice. i just have trouble wrapping my head around the way you achieve the results.

 

[Dani Girl]

Hi Danae! I’m not sure why you feel the need to transfer every last shade line and dot anyway? The basic construction lines and maybe a few hints to locate the details has always been plenty for me. Perhaps you’re chasing perfection of something with little practical use. MHO, YMMV…

Mitch. I took this as rhetorical.

I wish to transfer higher quality because

A. I like engraving some animals and such and my drawing is not so good, so I get enjoyment from engraving from a good transfer (at 1200dpi you can see where they eyes go and put some good marks down for where his ears and chin etc are.

B. I have learned to use this app and enjoy challenging myself in my drawing scrollwork, I've had several goes at how I want to do the shading on just about every leaf on what I'm working on at the moment. I've watched Sam Alfano's master shading dvd which was very good and hopefully my engraving will be improved some for it.

C. I can should I wish to give clients a clear outline of what they'd be paying for, although it's slow drawing like this and I'd want to charge a bit for the priviledge.

Now that I've found the printer setting to double the dpi to 1200 I seem to have things as good as they'll get. That being said I've seen Brian Marshall achieve far better results but I forget how. I know better than this is possible.

 

[Dani Girl]

Here's one of their many videos.

I've been having some fun with getting some clothes printed out with my drawings on. Here's some examples.

 

[mitch]

Ok, so long as you’re having fun. Glad to know you’re back engraving.

 

[monk]

the idea of giving a prospective client a quality print of the proposed work is an absolute xcellent idea. this can save confusion and avoids an unhappy customer. that, then makes sense to add all the tiny details. when i first started, i made actual engraved scroll styles and border effects on 2 x2" brass plates. this went a long way towards a customer getting to choose what style they favor. the brass plates saved me a lot of time drawing a bunch of different styles.
as a business, anything that saves a bit of time or improves quality is money in the bank.