I have been looking into making my own decals for some of my planes. I have looked through some of the posts here and have a pretty good handle on the materials to use, but software is another item. I realize there will be several opinions for which software to use so let me state some criteria. I will be making/editing graphics for decals. I would like to be able to manipulate images saved from web pages (or similar type files). It would be nice if there were tools to create my own graphics. Photo editing would be a plus, but not a strict requirement.
I do not want to take out a second (oops 3rd, the second was for my planes ) mortgage for the software. RAGII, That's the rub. Good software to do what you're asking is going to cost. One of the standards for this would be Photoshop, but it's a pricey package. That's what Minnflyer and I use for most of the graphics that we do here (Minn uses the Mac version and I use the Windows version). I also use Corel Draw for graphics that I cut vinyl/monokote. But once again it's expensive too.
If you have a Linux system you can use The Gimp which is incredibly powerful graphics package. There is a Windows cross-over for The Gimp but I haven't tried it yet. You can find it here: link=Gimp for Windows/link Depending on what graphics you're looking for I may be able to help you. PM me and we'll see if we can work something out. Sorry that I couldn't be much help here Ken. Ken, I did some more looking on RCU and found a reference to a package called Xara Extreme.
linkFor $79.00 (or $89.00 with a few extras) it looks like a great package for a really low cost. Have you heard of it or know anyone using it?
The first graphics I am thinking of are for my SSC combat plane. (Flying combat helps accelerate my flying skill with planes that are hard to damage). MY son has been helping me with the color scheme and wants me to make it look like Tony Stewart's NASCAR race car. (Home Depot sponsor). I have an Ink Jet printer that takes photo cartridges and access to a color laser printer if I need.
I was hoping to take some images from the Web and manipulate them for decals. Looking ahead, I can see myself doing some more custom decals of various items. I have read in some posts about your services and have that in mind should I fail in this attempt, or if I want something of a higher quality.
I do not plan on doing this as a business as I have a hard enough time building my planes, much less trying to supply graphics for anyone. (Slow Poke build that is taking forever.) Thanks, Rob.
ORIGINAL: Campy If you have a digital camera, the MAJORITY of the manufacturers provide a BASIC photo editing software. This can be used in many cases for editing your scans. If you do a Google for 'Free photo editing software' you find a multitude of listings, many of which are freeware or shareware (I have gotten some decent programs from shareware). Hope this helps.
Campy, Thanks for the cover. I hadn't even thought of that. I guess my brain is mush tonight. It's been a long day!!!
I think I have a couple of disks laying around here of the freebie version of that Photoshop gives out with digital cameras. If I can find it I'll check to make sure that it truly is free and I'll zip it up and send it to you if you want. You can actually do quite a bit with an inkjet printer and the Avery media materials that are available.
Not looking at the stars on the plane in these pictures, but all the rest of the graphics that I did here were done with an HP inkjet printer and Avery window decal material. It's a clear material that is easy to print on. One thing to keep in mind when doing graphics like these is that they aren't fuel proof.
You need to seal them up in some way. When I did the SSE in these pictures I sealed them with clear monokote. But after a season of flying I wasn't happy with the way they were holding up. Since then I've found a better way of sealing graphics (all types including vinyl), use clear fingernail polish. It's easy to put on, it's crystal clear, it's fuel-proof, it dries hard as a rock, and it's very hard to see once it dries. Hope this helps Ken. The decal above was made with $50 software on my pc and printed on my HP printer.
I used Avery label paper bought from Staples Office Supply. That one took almost no time to do. I copied the image from online but it was rough. Most of the dark lines were blurred and the colors weren't very vibrant. I used my paint program (the last upgrade version cost me $30) to fix all the problems. I sized up a number of versions of different sizes so I could match the size to the airplane and printed the block of them on a sheet of Avery label paper.
I fuel proofed the paper with UltraKote clear spray and cut out the right sized MightyMouse and stuck it on. The paint program is Paint Shop Pro and it cost me $60 when I bought the first version about 5 years ago. I didn't know to wait for it to come out in a new version to get the best price. If you wait for a new version, the last year's version will be marked way down. I've bought it for $20. Upgrades now are something like $30 usually.
Every paint program I've used will do almost everything that every other paint program will do. I've never used a free one. I've used a couple that cost BIG MONEY, but they didn't do anything worth the price. If they hadn't been at work, I'd never have used them.
I wouldn't pay half their price to get them for myself. If they were $30, I'm not sure I'd go buy them today. Ain't nothing I can't do with PSP, and it was $30. The decal below wasn't quite as simple.
The old gunfighter was just him, no background, nothing else, just the old guy. I used PSP to layer a green bordered, white circle behind him. Then put a green bordered rectangle below. Then used the text tool to put the letters in the rectangle. Then sized up a bunch of different sizes and printed that out on the Avery paper. Took about 3-4 minutes.
Sprayed the clear lacquer on. Took about 1 minute. Cut it out and stuck it on. Took 2 minutes. I have two kinds of Avery Label paper.
One isn't paper. It's clear and I use it to make lettering etc. The other is what I used for the two examples shown. Most pc printers don't 'ink' in the color white.
So I use the white Avery stock for anything that's going to have white in it. If it's not going to have white, I use the transparent. The transparent still needs fuelproofing because the ink isn't. If you can spray paint with a can, you can do it.
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Any tips on what decal making software would be the best? I'd like to start making some 'under hood' decals for some of these old annuals, you know, warning labels, valve cover & air cleaner labels etc. It's really hard to find a set of 'Golden Lion' valve cover decals for a '65 Chrysler if you know what I mean. Anyway, I'd like to set up a page full of small labels & take a disc somewhere with a laser printer to have them printed. I used to have some old 'card making' software, but my computer won't run it anymore. (too old I guess) So I'd like to find some good software for creating some nice decals. Any suggestions?
For fairly simple stuff you can simply take a good quality image and shrink it, then use a word program like Microsoft word, open office etc to layout your sheet. You will get some distortion, but by starting with a good large image you can get a respectable result.
This is also used by many to make license plates, books or magazines to lay on a seat in a car etc. The big advantage to this method is it has a fairly shallow learning curve and uses programs most people already have on their computers. The higher end is to use a vector based drawing program like Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator.
These are what most professional / hard core do it yourselfers are using. These are not cheap programs ($200+) but if you are a student (or have kids in school) you can use them to get a cheaper student version for about 1/2 price. Sometimes you can find an older version on ebay for much less, and they really don't lose much for our use vs getting the latest version. Inkscape is a free vector drawing program, I have no experience with it, but hey it's free what do you have to lose.
Software For Model Decal Making
Vector based programs are different from the more common (and generally much cheaper) raster (aka pixel) based programs like Microsoft Paint that you get free with many computers. Raster based programs use tiny dots to make an image, so when you enlarge or shrink the image it actually changes by adding or subtracting pixels.
Large changes in size can result in major distortion issues. Vector based programs use reference points instead of pixels so you can take a small image and blow it up into a huge image or take a large image and shrink it down to a postage stamp with no loss of quality. This not only allows you to rescale for different uses but also allows you to work at a conveiniant size. I frequently work on a decal at about 5-6' which is big enough to see the details well, but small enough that I don't have to pan around the screen much. I shrink it down to 1/2', 1' or whatever as appropriate for the model it is going onto. The real downside to most vector programs is they have a very steep learning curve and are not particularly intuitive for most people.
I've been using Corel Draw about 10 years now and I'm still learning how to do things. It is also somewhat labor intensive.
Doing something complex like a city or state seal might involve 6 or 8 hours of drawing time. Something simple like a warning sticker on a commercial truck which is just text on a brightly colored polygon 'Don't put your tongue in the fan belt' is pretty easy though, maybe 10 minutes. Making your own decals is really fun and opens up a lot of new options, but it can be a lot of work.
The other issue is the decals are basically transparent unless you use special printers, so you need to use them over light colors or use white decal paper which creates its own issues. Edited January 7, 2015 by Aaronw. Thanks Aaron. That's a little more to take in than this 51 year old basically computer illiterate brain can handle! I'm looking to keep it pretty simple, & while I do want nice looking decals, they don't need to be perfect. I've had a little experience printing up some decals with my old 'Broderbund' Print Master Card making software from probably 25 years ago. Was still using it until I purchased a new computer.
I would just download images from the net, shrink or reshape them & print them on my inkjet. Of course, with an inkjet printer you have issues with the ink coming off so they need sealing.
I also had issues with shrinking the images too much & having them wind up far too distorted. I had seen actual 'decal maker' software on the net & was wondering if anyone had tried them. I was hoping I could fill up a disc with images & then take them to an Office Max or the like & have them printed on my decal paper on a Laser printer. Maybe I should try 'Word' or something first.
Although I'm not real familiar with it. Well with word, you simply open a table with columns / rows set to provide the size blocks you need.
The you insert pictures into the blocks and resize them to your needs. This allows you to control where on the page they will appear much like the business card programs do. Tables take some practice if you've never used them but not too bad. You can find short video tutorials on youtube to walk you through table use if you are not familiar with setting them up. I've not seen any specific decal making programs that were of any use beyond maybe providing some useful clip art. If you buy the Testors decal kit they include a sample of their decal maker software (the full program is $8.95), but I've not heard many praise it's virtues. It's cheap though and from what I understand it works similar to the program you used to have.
Decal Software
The testors decal paper is ok, and I rather like their decal sealant in a spray can. Decals printed on a laser printer still need to be sealed. I prefer a laser printer to inkjet for decals, but there isn't much difference in quality and both will run or smudge if you get heavy handed with the sealant. Well with word, you simply open a table with columns / rows set to provide the size blocks you need. The you insert pictures into the blocks and resize them to your needs. This allows you to control where on the page they will appear much like the business card programs do.
Tables take some practice if you've never used them but not too bad. You can find short video tutorials on youtube to walk you through table use if you are not familiar with setting them up. I've not seen any specific decal making programs that were of any use beyond maybe providing some useful clip art. If you buy the Testors decal kit they include a sample of their decal maker software (the full program is $8.95), but I've not heard many praise it's virtues.
It's cheap though and from what I understand it works similar to the program you used to have. The testors decal paper is ok, and I rather like their decal sealant in a spray can. Decals printed on a laser printer still need to be sealed. I prefer a laser printer to inkjet for decals, but there isn't much difference in quality and both will run or smudge if you get heavy handed with the sealant.
Thanks Aaron. I was under the assumption that if they were printed on a laser printer, they didn't need sealing. So that clears that one up anyway. Thanks Aaron.
I was under the assumption that if they were printed on a laser printer, they didn't need sealing. So that clears that one up anyway. Steve I thought so to, but I found out that isn't the case. Lasers are less prone to smudging when you apply the sealant though which makes them nicer to work with. Here is an example of what I was talking about using word for.
Testors Decal Maker Instructions
These are actually just things I set up to print on paper to include as cab details in emergency vehicles (reference books, forms, maps), but would work the same for decals. The numbers are included as a key so I know what everything is supposed to be (print is too small to read on the individual items). You can set the table grid to be invisible so the lines don't print out if you want. I thought so to, but I found out that isn't the case.
Lasers are less prone to smudging when you apply the sealant though which makes them nicer to work with. Here is an example of what I was talking about using word for. These are actually just things I set up to print on paper to include as cab details in emergency vehicles (reference books, forms, maps), but would work the same for decals. The numbers are included as a key so I know what everything is supposed to be (print is too small to read on the individual items).
You can set the table grid to be invisible so the lines don't print out if you want. I started a page like that Aaron & did a test print. Problem is, I'm having trouble getting the images small enough. Steve, it seems incredible that no aftermarket decal maker offers an under-hood markings sheet (to my knowledge, and I've searched). I cut up bits and pieces from left-over sheets to loosely approximate some of the markings - totally inaccurate but slightly better than nothing.
(At 64 I'm that much more of a computer dummy than you profess to be.) I know peter. It ticks me off that there's a thousand decal makers out there making decals for every obscure race car imaginable, but nobody can make a simple warning label for a radiator or a 'Diehard' battery decal. I started a page like that Aaron & did a test print. Problem is, I'm having trouble getting the images small enough. Steve Yeah, always an issue doing it this way.
If you mean you can't physically get them that small vs maintain a useful quality at that size, you can right click on the image and type in your desired dimensions. Usually this method is just a stop gap though, it can provide some detail at a distance, but they are usually just colorful blobs up close. To get really good quality you pretty much have to go with one of the programs I mentioned in my first post. Anyway it looks like you've found a source to get what you need though. It sounds like there are more interested in these decals than just you, so hope this works out well for all of you.
Edited January 9, 2015 by Aaronw.