Who can print me truly factory-quality waterslide decals?

[Plumcrazy Preston]

I just received a custom decal sheet from Josh Muma of Bedlam Creations and I yelled ARRGH!! out loud like Charlie Brown. This thing cost me $57. I've attached my original image design with a Plum Crazy background color and a few photo samples taken with my digital camera up close. I emailed Mr. Muma the following message:

 

12/8/2020

 

 

Josh:

 

I'm sorry to say that the decal sheet appears to be a total flop. I was not expecting a fish-net pattern over my decal objects but rather crisp decals in solid colors. The fish-net pattern is almost as dark if not darker than the purple background which is to be my painted models.I don't think that many of those decals will even show up on my darker-purple-painted models. Even the light-silver KENWORTH decals have some dark purple fish-net over them. 

 

I used my digital camera and photographed parts of the decal sheet and placed them next to my original decal image designs for visual comparison. I've attached a file with my original decal sheet design and a few samples of photos of the actually decal sheet received for visual comparison. Is there another method than thermal ALPS that produces much crisper decals truer to the original image? I have printed much nicer-looking decals with my home HP Officejet on Testors decal paper but I can't print white or light colors, pastels, on that machine, of course. I've only printed black and red decals.  

 

How come decals that come in factory-boxed model kits look so clean and nice? I was expecting "factory" quality. 

 

 

 

Sincerely,

(my full legal name)

 

Now my question is, what decal printing company should a fussy serious model builder really be using instead? I authored my image for a decal sheet print job in Microsoft Paint. I don't have Corel/Vector drawing skills or software. 

The quality of the custom decals will make or break my model projects. 

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Plumcrazy Preston

[Plumcrazy Preston]

The image I submitted to Mr. Muma was authored in bitmap 300 dpi. I used two online sites to convert it to a 600 dpi PNG file and make the hot-pink background it had transparent. The JPG image I'm showing here has the purple background which is to approximate the model color the decals are intended to be applied to. 

 

Mr. Muma did kindly issue me a refund in full and made this reply:

 

(my legal name),

 

Unfortunately with the files supplied and not wanting them to be altered this was the quality that could be produced.

 

I will go ahead and issue you a full refund for this.

 

I do not believe you will be able to accomplish your goal based on what you are looking for unless you have a mass print run done with screen process which I do not do.

 

Sorry I was not able to achieve what you were looking to have done.

 

Please either return or discard the decals.

Sincerely,

Josh Muma

Edited December 8, 2020 by Plumcrazy Preston

[iBorg]

A few points here. What you supplied was a bitmapped file. A bitmap file is made up of dots and not lines. Whenever you change the size of a bitmapped file, there is a real likelihood of the image changing and producing what are called artifacts. The artwork may have worked better as a vector based file. The second issue is that most printers work in some variation of cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink. A purple would have elements of each of those in it. To achieve various colors they print halftone dots with the intent of fooling the eye. If the artwork had been vector based, the halftone dots may have been smaller but still present. The light silver would have printed better with a silver foil which is only available with a handful of printers, the ALPS being the most common.

[Plumcrazy Preston]

Can text and numbers be easily authored in a vector program? 

[Fat Brian]

Try Firebird Designs, he's done good work for me. Mr. Muma disappeared on me after I paid him $120 and sent him a body to take measurements of, he can go kick rocks personally. 

These decals were done by Firebird.

[iBorg]

Text and Numbers are best done in vector. Nothing in your files would be hard to create in vector. Take a skilled person one to two hours depending on what you had to submit for the wolf head. The license plates may best be rendered with the background in bitmap and the numbers in vector.

[Dave Van]

As a decal manufacture for 40 years I will say decals will only be as good as the artwork AND the print can create. 

Artwork MUST be vector art and the printer must be able to print 600 dpi minimum.  'Home' decals can be as good or better than screen printed 'factory' decals in some ways. Screen decals need a screen for each color....13 colors 13 screens......each sheet will be costly. Digital print decals done right can have 3 colors or 100 colors....same cost to print. And at 800 dpi as fine a print as screened decals.  What you showed looks like art that was not vector and a printer not up to very fine printing.  I have 300 decals in my line and as of last month I have gone 100% digital print. The decal custom printers out there charge $10-20 a INCH so a 11 inch page of decals can cost $200. But they will be very nice. 

I do not do custom work but if you need info on those that do contact me.

This is what they should look like......

 

[peteski]

I also concur that top quality decals really should be done as vector graphics.  MS paint is not optimal.

As for the "fishnet" what you seeing is halftoning or dithering.  It is an artifact of the limitations of the type of consumer printer used to print decals.  Those printers only have 4 inks: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (K), and they are called CYMK printers.  Those printers use a grid of various size dots of those 4 inks to result in specific shades of colors.  For a technical explanation see  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone  Those dots or grid is the undesirable effect of that type of printing.  Depending on the resolution of the printer and type of halftoning it is capable of, the halftones might be from almost invisible to unacceptable.

As a long time user of Alps MicroDry printers I'm reasonably sure that that those decals were printed on an Alps printer.  It's halftone capability is rather poor (as you can see yourself).  But Alps is also capable of printing really good quality decals, but that requires lots of extra work, and a know-how of the tricks that are needed for Alps to produce excellent results.  Without going into too many details, basically the secret is spot color printing multiple layers of ink and capability to overlay inks.  There now is a wide range of spot color ink cartridges available for Alps. Spot color printing is one of the "special" Alps features not available in other consumer color printers.  Not every color can be printed that way, but there is a wide range of colors that can be printed without that "fishnet" halftonning.

Ink jet printers use different halftonign technique and can print smaller dots than Alps, but unlike Alps they cannot print a base layer of white ink to make the colro images opaque, and their ink is water soluble.

This is just a tip of the Alps iceberg.  It is a hobby in itself.

As for your decal, it looks like the person printing them just directly printed your artwork, as is (with maybe some small corrections). That usually is not good enough, but without vector-based artwork, that is all that can be done.

The commercial printer Dave Van uses likely uses either spot-color printer, or a UV-cured Ink jet printers which have really fine halftones.  But you have to pay for the quality.

Edited December 9, 2020 by peteski

[iamsuperdan]

Home decals are always an option.

If you ignore the crap installation I did on these, they actually turned out pretty good. 

Used the Testor's decal paper and spray bonder. Printed at home using our run of the mill HP photo printer and an older version of Corel Paint Shop Pro. The designs are crisp, and colours are accurate. Can't do metallics though. And if you can install them correctly, and not like I've done, then they can look pretty good.

 

They're not pro, but then neither am I.

 

[peteski]

Home-made decals printed on ink jet are translucent, and will only work if applied to white surface. Well except black images - those are naturally opaque.

You can print on white-film decal paper, but then you have to trim each image, so the white film does not show up.

Edited December 9, 2020 by peteski

[Plumcrazy Preston]

8 hours ago, Fat Brian said:

Try Firebird Designs, he's done good work for me. Mr. Muma disappeared on me after I paid him $120 and sent him a body to take measurements of, he can go kick rocks personally. 

These decals were done by Firebird.

How about just submitting images in monochrome: black, gray, white, silver, how doable is this? How hard is it to print NEAT monochrome decals? If I make an image in Paint, can somebody re-author that artwork in vector for a certain fee? 

[Russell C]

I'm a little surprised that the decal company accepted a bitmap file in the first place. Trained graphic artist that I am, when I worked at a couple of different sign companies, I used to be an beast with the salesmen about being sure to either demand vector artwork from their customers or charge extra for the time I needed to scan the customer's bitmap files to use as templates to draw vector files, which then had super crisp and infinitely resizable shapes. That subsequently allowed the customers to have artwork which was usable for screenprinting, vinyl decal cutting, business card printing, photo etching (thin flat metal sheets or deep etch magnesium plates for sandcasting brass/bronze/aluminum plaques), etc.

One of these days when I get out from underneath current obligations, I intend to have a retirement career of eclectic graphic arts where I can do vector art drawing of old or custom made decals, among other things. Alas, zero available time to do so right now.

Edited December 9, 2020 by Russell C
typo

[peteski]

12 minutes ago, Plumcrazy Preston said:

How about just submitting images in monochrome: black, gray, white, silver, how doable is this? How hard is it to print NEAT monochrome decals? If I make an image in Paint, can somebody re-author that artwork in vector for a certain fee? 

There is a directory of custom decal producers on  https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/decals.htm  , plus a good tutorial on creating artwork for decals. Yes, for Alps printer, but the concept applies to artwork in general. Contact some of those people/companies and see if they will be willing to vectorize your artwork, and what type of bitmap artwork they would prefer.  I would also recommend that you do your artwork in at least 600dpi.

[Plumcrazy Preston]

1 hour ago, Russell C said:

I'm a little surprised that the decal company accepted a bitmap file in the first place. Trained graphic artist that I am, when I worked at a couple of different sign companies, I used to be an beast with the salesmen about being sure to either demand vector artwork from their customers or charge extra for the time I needed to scan the customer's bitmap files to use as templates to draw vector files, which then had super crisp and infinitely resizable shapes. That subsequently allowed the customers to have artwork which was usable for screenprinting, vinyl decal cutting, business card printing, photo etching (thin flat metal sheets or deep etch magnesium plates for sandcasting brass/bronze/aluminum plaques), etc.

One of these days when I get out from underneath current obligations, I intend to have a retirement career of eclectic graphic arts where I can do vector art drawing of old or custom made decals, among other things. Alas, zero available time to do so right now.

I sent the file in the form of a PNG. Many laymen don't have vector skills and software. The average Joe who cements model planes together lacks this skill usually. The average Joe won't have custom decals made anyway. 

Edited December 9, 2020 by Plumcrazy Preston

[Plumcrazy Preston]

1 hour ago, peteski said:

There is a directory of custom decal producers on  https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/decals.htm  , plus a good tutorial on creating artwork for decals. Yes, for Alps printer, but the concept applies to artwork in general. Contact some of those people/companies and see if they will be willing to vectorize your artwork, and what type of bitmap artwork they would prefer.  I would also recommend that you do your artwork in at least 600dpi.

Paint only works in 300 dpi. 

[peteski]

1 hour ago, Plumcrazy Preston said:

I sent the file in the form of a PNG. Many laymen don't have vector skills and software. The average Joe who cements model planes together lacks this skill usually. The average Joe won't have custom decals made anyway. 

PNG is a non-lossy bitmap format (unlike JPG), so at least that was a good thing.  Alps (which is what most cottage-industry decal makers use) is a 600dpi printer, so it makes sense to use 600dpi artwork.

You mention "average Joe" skills, and yet the title of this thread mentions that you want "truly factory-quality decals"?  We presented you some options on how to go about getting those high-quality results.  If you are an average-Joe then you either have to pick  up some skills, or hire someone who will do this for you (a paid service).  As an average-Joe, using MS Paint, I doubt you will ever get factory-quality decals.  But I could be wrong.  Maybe someone else will chime in with some brilliant magical solution.

Edited December 9, 2020 by peteski

[Erik Smith]

If you want “truly factory quality”, contact a company that makes water slide decals. Micro Scale will make them for you, but you will need 250 sheets minimum. 
http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=Custom

[iamsuperdan]

11 hours ago, peteski said:

Home-made decals printed on ink jet are translucent, and will only work if applied to white surface. Well except black images - those are naturally opaque.

You can print on white-film decal paper, but then you have to trim each image, so the white film does not show up.

I've done one kit where I needed decals on a black truck. The paper seems a little thicker, but the images printed just as clear and crisp. Overall I'm pretty happy with the results.

 

Definitely need a sharp knife so you can trim them properly.

 

[Plumcrazy Preston]

I found a site called  online.

 

I'm going to see if they can do a nice vector conversion for me. I'm using simple monochrome art objects. Black, white and greys. Then maybe I can submit the vector work in for decal printing. 

[Fat Brian]

10 hours ago, Plumcrazy Preston said:

How about just submitting images in monochrome: black, gray, white, silver, how doable is this? How hard is it to print NEAT monochrome decals? If I make an image in Paint, can somebody re-author that artwork in vector for a certain fee? 

If you send him your file I'm sure he can recreate it in vector. The decals I posted were around $30 for design and print.

The main issue is that any pixel based graphics format won't print cleanly, for crisp lines you have to have a vector file. The color really doesn't make a difference in this respect. 

[Plumcrazy Preston]

Copyartwork.com just gave me a quote for $25 for a vectorization job. Here is my decal sheet image in JPG form to post here. The vector company got my file in TIFF form because BMP was too large to upload there. The purple background is Plum Crazy and is to be transparent for printing. 

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by Plumcrazy Preston

[Ironman63]

Inkscape is a free vector graphics program.  It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Corel but might be a way to create your own vector graphics.  If you have never used vector before, there is a huge learning curve, at least there was for me because I was used to Photoshop and the two are completely different.  Hope this helps.

[peteski]

Avoid JPG files like a plague - they manipulate the bitmap (produce all sorts of artifacts or compression) and  make it harder to vectorize it.  PNG is much better - it uses non-lossy compression, so the image is unmolested but the file size is smaller than TIF or BMP.

Also keep in mind that even if you send a vector file to the same decal maker as before, the decals will still have that halftone "fishnet" pattern for their fill. That is because of the shade of color and the printing technique your decal person uses.  With vector-based artwork you might find someone who uses advanced printing techniques with Alps to get the colors printed without the halftonning, and with real metallic silver ink.  Alps is the only affordable consumer printer which can  print metallic inks.  Other than that, silk-screen printing is the other way to get that high quality decal done.

[Plumcrazy Preston]

4 hours ago, peteski said:

Avoid JPG files like a plague - they manipulate the bitmap (produce all sorts of artifacts or compression) and  make it harder to vectorize it.  PNG is much better - it uses non-lossy compression, so the image is unmolested but the file size is smaller than TIF or BMP.

Also keep in mind that even if you send a vector file to the same decal maker as before, the decals will still have that halftone "fishnet" pattern for their fill. That is because of the shade of color and the printing technique your decal person uses.  With vector-based artwork you might find someone who uses advanced printing techniques with Alps to get the colors printed without the halftonning, and with real metallic silver ink.  Alps is the only affordable consumer printer which can  print metallic inks.  Other than that, silk-screen printing is the other way to get that high quality decal done.

When converting a BMP file to a PNG or TIFF file, I've noticed the image gets resized dimensionally about three times. The original image for decal artwork is 1:1 scale. The objects are drawn precisely to fit the specific models. I'm going to have the vectorizer firm make the file in the format of PDF. PDF is universal. They must realize that the original image is that of a decal sheet 8" x 10". Nothing is to get resized in the conversion process. Size is of the utmost importance for printing decals. A serious model builder should have a steel ruler in graduations of 32nds and 64ths as I do. Authoring the art objects for the decals took me a lot of making measurements on the actual model body parts themselves. One must pay attention to size and proportion when designing graphics. 

Edited December 10, 2020 by Plumcrazy Preston

[Casey]

This is the company Round2 and Revell (sometimes) use for their decals: http://www.cartograf.eu/