Help exporting vehicle wrap!!!

Hello young lads :) I have a problem delivering a vehicle wrap I designed with XDP 7. The thing is 215" long x 72" height and includes some bitmaps, so it is not 100% vectorial. Now, how do I export that for the printer? They say they need the file 100% scale @ 300 DPI, when some other online dudes say they can do with ~150DPI, to scale the image 1/4, etc. I'm just very confused.

When I try to export full size, XDP doesnt let me put anything beyond 70 DPI or so, even if I type 300 in the box, it gets rid of the last zero :(

So....how do I do it????

Thank you in advance

Aram

Where exactly are you typing the 300 for dpi?
Which format are you trying to export to?

You may have trouble exporting an image that large. You might have to export as JPEG with some compression.

See the attached for the resolution setting in the export bitmap dialog.

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Originally Posted by sledger

Where exactly are you typing the 300 for dpi?
Which format are you trying to export to?

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The printer is asking JPG, full size, 300 DPI. That's 215"x72" @ 300 dpi for the side of a van vehicle.

I'm typing "300" or choosing 300 in the export dialog's Bitmap Size tab where it says Bitmap Size and Resolution. I can confirm the following:

Whatever the resolution I type in the box, exporting as JPG, even 95% quality...

* When trying to export full size, it always exports to 76 DPI
* When trying to 1/2 size, it always exports to 96 DPI
* When trying to 1/4 size, it always exports to 96 DPI
* Exporting at 10% of the size it accepts 300 DPI however later in Photoshop if I do Image -> Image size and change the Document size to 215" width, keep Resample unchecked, the resultion drops to 30 DPI.

Any ideas?

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

You may have trouble exporting an image that large. You might have to export as JPEG with some compression.

See the attached for the resolution setting in the export bitmap dialog.

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Exactly. But whatever I type or choose there won't work and Xara will export with other resolution. It seems it uses the higher available resolution value it can provide. At 10% of size, it would do 300 DPI but not bigger. If I put 1200 DPI for 10% (about 20" width) it will take out the latest cero and export at 120 DPI only.

At least Xara Xtreme 4 has a size limitation on what it can export at 300 ppi. I often export 24 x 36 full color to 300 ppi TIF or JPG. However, Xara won't let me export much larger than that. I don't think Xara is the best application for full color vector/photo as it applies to large format applications like vehicle wraps. I create maps in Xara for large format printing. While I'd like to do 300 ppi 36 x 48 or larger, Xara won't let me. If XPD 7 is an exception - forget what I'm saying. But Xara always had a maximize size/resolution - I know, I've tried.

Why is everyone talking in bitmaps? Why not download some form of PDF maker and send it to print to the PDF engine! If the Aram can't find suitable maker, mind you there're plenty of them about, then they could always PM me and I could do it for him.

Cool, freebies ! :D

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Originally Posted by Albacore

Why is everyone talking in bitmaps? Why not download some form of PDF maker and send it to print to the PDF engine! If the Aram can't find suitable maker, mind you there're plenty of them about, then they could always PM me and I could do it for him.

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Ehem...can you tell me more please? PDF maker? Do you mean something like a PDF printer, like Adobe Acrobat's? I have the CS5 suit with Adobe Acrobat 9...do you mean I can print the artwork to PDF and there configure it to output like the printer guys ask (215x72"@300dpi? How do I do that! :)

Sorry my ignorance in this theme...I have being designing and coding for almost 20 years but have never ever done something bigger than a wall poster; worked like 5 years for a printer in the 90's but thats it...

Well the first thing you could try is to export the document to PDF from Designer Pro. I would try the Commercial Printing PDF/X 300dpi) setting.

If you can output that file then this should be sufficient for your printer. Try this an let us know.

What Peter was recommending is more complicated.

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Well the first thing you could try is to export the document to PDF from Designer Pro. I would try the Commercial Printing PDF/X 300dpi) setting.

If you can output that file then this should be sufficient for your printer. Try this an let us know.

What Peter was recommending is more complicated.

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Ok this is what I got:

Exporting or printing to PDF doesn't dice: when exporting I get multiple and massive "Access violation at..." kind of messages and their "Out of memory" little friends :) Even if I have 4GB in this machine and everything else closed. In the case of printing to PDF, via Adobe Acrobat 9 it just doesn't do anything. It acts like if I have clicked the Cancel button.

I have tried almost all export formats and get either Xara crashed, or the whole system crashed :) or nothing at all.

Now, exporting to TIFF, 10% of the size it allows me to put 700 DPI max --this didn't worked for JPG, BMP, PNG formats. The file size isn't that bad: 14MB. Then can go to Photoshop and save it as JPG max quality --printer's request. The Image -> Image size dialog confirms it is 700 DPI. Saving the JPG drops the file size to 7MB.

Now I have a new question: do you guys think this is enough for the printer to resize it to the correct size and have it at 300 DPI. I'm confused since by math: 10% of size at 700 DPI would yield 100% size at 70 DPI, that's without resampling I guess, uh?

[EDIT]

So I went to Photoshop and typed the 100% width and 300 DPI with Resampling box checked. It saved as TIFF and made a 400MB file. The other possible formats are PSB and RAW.

However I won't be able to deliver such big file, so I ask again: would you guys think the 10% @ 700 DPI file would work for the printer?

Have you a copy of Adobe Distiller? if not try Cute PDF and you can get it here; http://www.cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/writer.asp
Also have a look at PDF 995 as I have heard good reports about it but have not used it: http://www.pdf995.com/
Final thought if you want to make money with your designs why not upgrade your software to the Pro version it is worth the money just for the PDF export filter. If you have bought PS why not upgrade and get Acro Pro as it is one of the Adobe products it worth the money if you upgrade to the CS suite.

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Originally Posted by Albacore

Have you a copy of Adobe Distiller? if not try Cute PDF and you can get it here; http://www.cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/writer.asp
Also have a look at PDF 995 as I have heard good reports about it but have not used it: http://www.pdf995.com/
Final thought if you want to make money with your designs why not upgrade your software to the Pro version it is worth the money just for the PDF export filter. If you have bought PS why not upgrade and get Acro Pro as it is one of the Adobe products it worth the money if you upgrade to the CS suite.

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But would that help me to get the right file for the printer? Now the customer is asking for another design...and I haven't found the right way to deliver the stuff, of course, I told them from the begining I'm new into car wraps...

I have seen pictures in these forums of car wraps, so it can be done. I guess the person who did them before is no longer with us.

Sorry I thought I read the you had Xterme 4 but you have Design Pro 7 which will output your PDF no probs so that is why I was saying try PDF maker. The thing that will cause you problem is the bitmap through its resolution because your making your wrap quite large. First thing is the resolution of your bitmap, what does it say the res. is when you select it on the info bar at bottom left because that is going to limit the scaling of your wrap as max.page size in D Pro is 2.75m and your wrap is larger. The bitmap res. that you import is going to have to be around 300 dpi as you want the output of the bitmap to be 150 dpi as your will have to scale the drawing because of the max. page size. Therefore you must say to your printer that the output of the PDF is half the size that you want so it is quite easy for them to double the size of the PDF. Other thing to mention keep as much of your design as you can pure vector and limit things like feathering, shadows and transparencies to a minimum as these things will be rendered as a bitmap which when scaled may not print cleanly. Hope this makes sense to you! Do a bit of research here and on the net about scaling PDF's

I use Xara for some of our wrap layouts. You don't need 300 dpi at full scale! 72 to 100 is plenty and you won't tell the difference. I typically do the layout 1/10 scale and export at 720 dpi. I can't explain the difference that someone explained to me once, but just do a small test print and you'll see what I'm talking about.

here is a link to some of the wraps we did, all designed in Xara, at 1/10 scale and exported at 720. (for 72 dpi at full scale) includes some close ups.

http://www.sharxskinz.com/#Sharx%20Skinz

That's great Sharx. Thanks for sharing.

Now we need to get you to use Xara for your website ;)

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Originally Posted by Sharx

I use Xara for some of our wrap layouts. You don't need 300 dpi at full scale! 72 to 100 is plenty and you won't tell the difference. I typically do the layout 1/10 scale and export at 720 dpi. I can't explain the difference that someone explained to me once, but just do a small test print and you'll see what I'm talking about.

here is a link to some of the wraps we did, all designed in Xara, at 1/10 scale and exported at 720. (for 72 dpi at full scale) includes some close ups.

http://www.sharxskinz.com/#Sharx%20Skinz

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Now that's the answer I wanted to read :D THANK YOU Sharx!

Theoratically, exporting to pdf should do the trick, since pdf can use vectors that scale. However, I have tried it on my own images and found that some parts of the image are rendered incororenctly ot not at all.
I used both the built-in pdf-exporter as well as cute-pdf. Most of the time Xara simply crashes.
I will try to use the dpi-trick of sharx and compare the images.

Some notes on my images: I draw them on A1 (approx. 84 x 62 cm). Because I use high-quality printers, I need to use at least 150dpi tiff-exports. I make A0-images by exporting them at 300dpi and have it print in twice the size (resilting in a 150dpi end result).
Oh, and of course my images are kinda... complicated: lots of layers, containing many transparant groups, made of transparent and range-filled objects. Kinda ;)

_{BTW: I have had contact with xara-support about htis; initial ticket is handled well but my responses (inlcuding example images) are going in some void: next thing I usually hear is that the ticket is closed, because of no reaction :(. Oh welll...}

To Sharx:
Nice Ford Falcon (in 1964 took my drivers training classes in one :) ).

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

That's great Sharx. Thanks for sharing.

Now we need to get you to use Xara for your website ;)

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It sort of is... Magix Online.