Outputting your creation

[phurm]

Many of the graphics I see here are amazing and look great on screen BUT...

give me some idea of how you all output(print) these creations.

Do you use high quality color printers - ink vs laser - some other technique??

This is mostly an "I'm curious" question rather than I have a current need. Just curious how you would print the VW bus for instance to show off to someone to say "I created this in my computer and it's not a photo"

Comments?

Thanks.

Paul Hurm
phurm@one.net

[Big Frank]

All my creations, apart from the occasional t-shirt design, are intended for viewing on a computer monitor, which is why I never worry about output. I design websites and graphics for websites for a living, so my creations in this forum are purely a hobby. I turned the VW Splittie into a 1024x768 desktop wallpaper.

My t-shirt designs are reversed, output at 300dpi, and printed on an Epson Stylus 900.

--
Big Frank was
http://www.wognum.org/files/madewithxarax.gif

[jens g.r. benthien]

Paul,

I used to print my images with a color ink jet from Canon or a DesignJet from HP for poster size prints.

Just a few weeks ago I discovered a better way for my prints:

A national photo lab offers a 'disk-to-photo' service. Very elaborate digital imaging process for output up to 100 x 150 cm or 40 inches x 60 inches.

I simply scale my drawings to the required output size, export the files as a tif with 200dpi, burn them onto a CD and mail them in. After 3 or 4 days I have a nice photographic print with no grains at all. People started asking me what kind of camera I used, and I told them: a brand new XARA X model. They nodded and were impressed :-)

I guess they are bugging all dealers in this area for the new XARA X 8x10 bellows camera - hahahaha.

The quality is breathtaking. And it's cheaper than to print them with a designjet. And most important it's a hassle free process for me.

jens

[jclements]

Jens, is this a European company? Are there US affiltiates? Do they have a price list for their services?

[jens g.r. benthien]

John,

you should contact your regional Kodak lab - they can give you the name of the lab in your area that offers 'CD to photo' services.

Pricelists might vary, but here is a rough overview:
12 x 18 inch US$ 6.00
20 x 30 inch US$ 12.00
40 x 60 inch US$ 30.00

plus shipping/handling.

Set up your workspace in XARA X to this size, import your drawing, scale it up so that it fits the dimensions, select all, export as TIF with a resolution of max 200 dpi. File size starts at app. 24 MB for 12 x 18, 100 MB for 20 x 30.... be prepared to have some hot, fresh coffee during export :-)

jens

[gwpriester]

Hello Paul

If I just want a hard copy, I print out a copy on my HP Deskjet on ink jet paper. If I need a nicer copy I output the image on coated paper at HP's maximum resolution.

If I am submitting my images for commercial printing I generally convert them to TIFF files and use Sean Sedward's X-Port CMYK utility (available for free in The XaraXone Shareware Page) to convert Xara's RGB images into CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) images suitable for commercial output.

For Flash movies, I export the images from Xara in Flash's SWF file format and bring the images into Flash to do the editing.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

Be It Rarely So Humble...