Are my designs vector or something else?

[runorbike]

Hello,
I hope everyone is doing well tonight. Thank you for your help in advance. I am new to Corel. I just recently purchased the Corel Paintshop Photo Pro X3 ultimate. I have spent hours creating a bunch of images/designs. I will be using these images for designs on a large order of T-shirts. Once I sent my images to my Screen printer he told me that I need to have them in vector format so he can edit them and make changes, etc! I really don't know what format I have at the moment. Is this something that is easily fixed going from whatever format I have now to Vector or am I going to have to start over and go Vector from the start? Also can my Corel paintshop photo pro x3 ultimate software do this? Again I am new to Corel and any design work for that matter. I know I saw going from raster to vector, etc and did this several times while I was making my images. Also if I can't do this with my current Corel software, what would you recommend using?
I will also need to email the vector images once I get them complete, any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you so much again. Take care!

[LeviFiction]

Wait, your printer requires vector graphics so that they can edit them? How odd.

By default everything in Paint Shop Pro is raster. There are vector tools but you need to be using those specifically in order to create vectors. The tools are the Ellipse tool, the rectangle tool, the preset shape tool, the symmetrical shape tool,the pen tool, and the text tool. If you haven't been using these then you've been making rasters. Rasters are bitmap images, a whole bunch of tiny dots arranged right next to each other. Vectors are just a bunch of points and lines that define a graphic mathematically. Programs like Inkscape, Corel Draw, and Adobe Illustrator, Xara, and many more are vector specific programs.

PSPImage, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PSD, these are all raster image formats. Well...PSPImage and PSD can hold vector information. But usually they hold raster information.

From there the vector formats available in Paint Shop Pro that I know about (I don't often save them) are EMF(enhanced meta file, my preference), EPS, and WMF.

Once you've saved the vector files you can just email them like you would a normal picture. Assuming your printer can read all sorts of vector images, though I imagine he can.

If you've been making raster images up until now then you need to do some raster to vector conversion and Paint Shop Pro doesn't do that. For that you'd need something like Inkscape (free) which can look at the image and come up with something that's as close as it can guess would work in vectors.

I'm probably explaining all of this wrong. But how you've been making the images is the first important part. If you've been using any of the tools besides the ones mentioned above then I don't know how well these transfer over at all.

[runorbike]

Hello,
Wow, thank you so much for such a great nice reply. I am so new to this its hard to explain everything. I saved the main background to my computer and then uploaded it to Corel Paintshop photo pro x3! It was just a few lines, nothing fancy for the main background. Then I used the TEXT TOOL, PRESET SHAPE TOOL, SELECTION, FLOOD FILL and DROPPER tool.
Is there a way to see if my work is vector enough for my screen printer guy to use and be able to make changes, etc?
I am trying to save some big bucks by doing the vector work myself instead of hiring my screenprinter who will charge about $40 per hour of art work. I hate to have to pay for all of my art work, being that I have everything done, but maybe just not in the correct form or format. Raster(bitmap) verses vector, etc.
Thank you again and if you have any more great help, I would be greatful.
Shane

[LeviFiction]

Well selection and flood fill are raster things. The dropper tools is a color thing, technically raster but it works on everything that has a color attributed to it.

In my own testing the bitmap(raster) portion of the image, once I saved it as a vector EMF file, did not exist anymore. Only the vector information did. So I don't think Paint Shop Pro does a good job of exporting actual raster information. SO everything will have to be vector based in order to please your printer.

They aren't much but I do have some basic tutorials on all of the vector tools on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p ... 582FF10FEA Episodes 43-50 are the vector tutorials. Don't know if they'll be any help or not.

Once you have everything done You select Save As from the menu and pick either EMF(extended meta file) or WMF (windows metal file) which worked the best for me of all of the export options. And they're pretty standard so your printer shouldn't have a problem with them.

Now as for determining if what you've made will be saved as a vector, that's very easy. Just look at your layer's palette. Each layer in your image has a special icon that tells you what kind of layer it is. If it looks like a blank sheet of paper, or a blank sheet of paper with a transparency on top of it then it's a raster layer. You can see hose in the image I include below.

A vector layer has a sheet of paper with a circle and a square on it. You can also see that in the image below right next to the layer labeled "Danny Fenton." I took this from a vector image I made last year. All of the layers inside the vector layer are called layer groups but they aren't important to what you're looking at. I just use those for organizational purposes.

VectorLayer.jpg (22.16 KiB) Viewed 9173 times

I hope this helps a little. Because it's about all I can think of to say on the subject.

[df]

You could try this service for the first 3 months then learn your lesson and create nothing but Vectors from here on out.
http://vectormagic.com/home

I'd contact them and ask them to be very specific as to their file formats. Vectors are so varied program to program from what I understand it may make a big difference.

A note on screen printing (assuming it's screen printing and not computer inkjets or the like). In a screen printing environment each color gets it's own screen, it's own ink, it's own squeegee. So I'd assume that putting each color on it's own layer would be helpful. You may even go so far as to put each element on it's own layer as well, even if different elements were the same color. This may or may not help, when I was a screen printer for 4 years I didn't deal with the customer files at all, but I just thought I'd throw that out there.

[Ron P.]

I don't know what kind of budget you have, or if your T-shirt project is a one time project, but if you must design using vector graphics, you should have a look at what DF pointed out or quite possibly CorelDraw Graphics Suite. It is a professional, very powerful suite of programs. CorelDraw is a vector graphics design program. There's even a tracing utility, to trace bitmap (rastor) images, to convert them to vector. I have CorelDraw GS X4, and CorelDraw GS 9.

[LeviFiction]

Wow, that's impressive work for an online service. Naturally you'll have to clean it up after the tracing is completed but no tracing program produces a final product. So this is excellent in my mind for an automated system.

If CD's tracing is as good as this it might be worth it. I know the trace Inkscape uses does not produce the same type and quality results but I believe it's best for outline vectors than complete recreations. And a vector dedicated program for learning vectors, honestly, I consider a better idea. But Paint Shop Pro's tools aren't bad.

As for learning, I've developed my skills starting out tracing the various parts with the pen tool and going up from there. I still suck but I've gotten better. XD Even though the vector tools aren't that fancy, there is a lot you can do and make if you plan it out properly. And you'll really get that down as you work with many different types of images.

[teknisyan]

Hello runorbike,

Ron is correct, if you really want a more suitable tool for your project and for shirt design, I would suggest that you try Corel Draw X5, which also has a lot of features that you can use for creating graphics for shirts.

You can visit www.coreldraw.com for different works that corel draw users shares to other users. You can also visit http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/ ... 2796556718 and http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p ... BB77094A73 for the different online and video tutorials.

[runorbike]

Hello,
Thank you to everyone who has been helping me out. It is much appreciated.
I have downloaded the trial of Corel Draw X5. I am quite impressed so far. I was wondering if someone could help me find the Clip Art? Maybe because I have a trial version I can not access it?
Thank you again

[Ron P.]

For help with Coreldraw, you need to go to their community forum.. http://coreldraw.com/