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Sorry probably a Noob question but I'm trying to get into the graphic design portion of my screen printing, and I have a customer that provided me with artwork that is very small, its a very simple piece of art, only some lettering. When I attempt to scale it to put it across the front of the shirt its getting very pixelized. I've tried taking it in illustrator and making it live paint, but that takes away from the actuall image and it doesn't look the same.
Anyone know how to increase an image size in photoshop or illustrator without this happening? and without live paint?
Oh by the way it is a .jpeg image if that makes a difference.
If he gave you the original, you can scan it at a higher resolution. If it is a digital file, there is little you can do to make up for a lack of resolution. If it is low resolution because it was grabbed from the web, make sure there aren't any copyright issues.
If it is just type, I recomend rebuilding it in Illustrator so you have a vector version that can be scaled to any size. Time to learn the pen tool. :-)
If he gave you the original, you can scan it at a higher resolution. If it is a digital file, there is little you can do to make up for a lack of resolution. If it is low resolution because it was grabbed from the web, make sure there aren't any copyright issues.
If it is just type, I recomend rebuilding it in Illustrator so you have a vector version that can be scaled to any size. Time to learn the pen tool. :-)
R.
Yeah I grabbed it off the net, no copyright laws, its her own business.
I'm going to try to do it illustrator, but can you elaborate on the pen tool? do you mean with a tablet or mouse? Thanks
That is an age old problem with customer provided artwork. Most of us just recreate the artwork in illustrator or corel draw. However if you really need to enlarge a bitmap image. Do it in photoshop. Go to image size and choose bicubic smoother which is best for enlargements. Then Clean it up the best you can with your sharpening filters and standard photoshop design tools. Another option is a plug in for this purpose like alien skins "Blowup" or OnOne's Genuine Fractals. They use complex mathamatical algorithyms like the ones nasa uses to clean up satelite images. Good luck.
Yeah I grabbed it off the net, no copyright laws, its her own business.
I'm going to try to do it illustrator, but can you elaborate on the pen tool? do you mean with a tablet or mouse? Thanks
Doesn't matter what input device you are using (tablet or mouse). The pen tool is one of the Illustrator tools that draws points and curves (or straight lines) between the points. It allows you to manually recreate the outlines of the text.
You will need to do clean up all the time. I recommend taking an Illustrator class. It is probably easier than trying to learn the software on your own, although getting a tutorial book or finding tutorials online might be all you need for now.
The above advice regarding Genuine Fractals is great too.
Thank you for the info, I'll have to look into an Illustrator class, I'm going to head to the book store too see about picking up a book on Illustrator
Try YouTube if you have broadband, this link will take you to some Pen Tool tutorials, it explains it pretty well.
It takes a little practice at first, but after you 'get it', you'll really be happy that you took the time to learn it.
I'm doing some research on the Pen tool, probably going to take me a while on this image here. Here is the piece of artwork I'm trying to get into vector.
I'm doing some research on the Pen tool, probably going to take me a while on this image here. Here is the piece of artwork I'm trying to get into vector.
Thanks for the link, but what it looks like its doing is basically turning the object to live trace, the lines aren't square with the image.
Do you guys think if I took my artwork I could have them turn it into a vector image? Or a company online that does it? I really want to learn using the pen tool on Illustrator I just don't want to learn on a customes artwork, I'd rather learn on my own artwork in case I screw up
You could take it into Photoshop...
I used to do a lot of digital artwork for my customers, they'd send me the crappiest stuff imaginable, and I'd have to just repaint it.
(High res image, magnify the image, use a hard brush to paint)
If you rescanned this and did it at a higher resolution, then repainted it, you'd be done in an hour, which is a long time, but if you have to, you have to.
Take that into Illustrator and do what you need to then.
I think that the norm for Illustrator work is around $50. per hour or so, at least in sign shops it is.
This would cost you around that, maybe more to fix.
A lot of times customers would give me stuff like this, and I'd ask for a better piece, they usually said they didn't have anything.
I'd then ask if how they acquired it, then they'd say they got it at "......" So I'd ask, can't you get it from them?, they'd usually get it.
All artwork has a birthplace...
Making image larger, pixelized? 
