Wildgoose

Your ok Stacey. What program are you working with? As mentioned above, you should be able to just type out what you are wanting and change some fonts to get the look you want and then cut it. Some programs require you to convert the text to outlines once you get it like you want it, some don't. This is truly the basic of basics with vinyl work. If you want the look to have variable sized or variable fonts then just type the specific words out one at a time and that way they won't be connected to the other words and you can move them around and rotate them or re-size etc...

Here is a cleaned up version. Again I don't know what your plans are for the overall look. I am at a different workstation than I use most of the time so I didn't take the time to find the font but I left it live so you should be able to select it and change the font out to what you want if you don't like this one. I sent this back in AI rather than eps. See if it works for you. That file had all sorts of layers in there. To do some homework, open up both files and compare what you see in the layers. You might also toggle between preview and outline mode to see how many different lines there are on the original vs the simplified. adopt .ai

Ya you kinda got a mess going on there. It appears that you did a live trace on a picture with a bunch of shadow? If you have the original then re-do the live trace and in the tracing options choose black and white logo or some other preset that will get rid of the odd color layers and help clean it up. The other option is to dig through the layers panel and remove all the weird stuff and I don't have a good idea what you want the end result to turn out like to know what to trow away. The text would be better served just recreating it if you have the font. The hand is simple enough and I think there are all the elements there to work over what you have. I'll play with it a little and see if I can get it to where I think you were aiming. Illustrator doesn't make the determination what to keep or throw away so you have to tell it exactly what you want on a trace. I really don't like to trace if I can avoid it.

Welcome from Idaho. Signcut is a great program (I use it too). This forum is a great resource for those who are just getting into it.

That's awesome. You might be a redneck if you ever watched a movie while in the back of a pick-up truck. WAIT that was my second date with my wife.

CISS tanks are the way to go after the stock ones run out though, I have been really happy with CobraInk Systems on my WF30.

I currently have a Kodak all in one printer/copy/scan/fax that I used before I got my Epson WF30. Now it just does duty as a scanner but it doesn't scan all that great (kinda blurry/unclear) and it doesn't like my mac all that much either, I had to find some generic drivers to get it to work at all. What are some recommendations that are working good for you guys and especially if you use a mac. The Epson gets along great with mac. I am probably just looking for a scan only flatbed machine if I can find one.

You might give SignCut Pro a try. I got it with my original P-Cut and liked it so much I still use it with my SummaCut D75r. You can get a week free trial I think and they have either subscription based access or a dongle you can get. I think it kicks the crap out of the winplot that comes with the cutters. Maybe if you bought the upgrade it does better but I didn't like the layout. You must be designing elsewhere anyway to be using winplot so it might be right up your alley for both machines. Went ahead and bought the dongle and run it on two different computers so I am backed up in case the windows comp goes down.

I'm kinda glad to see all this type of feedback so I know it's not just me. I always thought I was just a pansy or something.

That's a good link and kind of what I was originally thinking but I was expecting to pay more so I am now considering the WF7510 or 20 option that OW and others recommended. If I go that route I will want to go ahead and get pigment ink so I can finally do larger transfers.....AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! It never seems to be a simple decision does it? I could easily blow a TON of money on all the upgrades I would like. Like being the operative word. Thanks for all the input fella's

I have been at this for about 3 years now and I think I am at the kindergarten level of font knowledge as compared to you mark who are some where up there in the second doctorate stage. You are phenomenal and a HUGE HUGE asset to this forum that I think many take for granted and probably take advantage of (by not doing their own do-diligence before asking). Thank you for all you do!

I personally prefer the 751. I have used a LOT of 651 for similar applications without problems though. If there are any rivets or contours then definitely 751 and I think if you have a huge amount of rivets or major contours like corrugated stuff Oracal recommends 951 (I have never yet had an application that I felt the need for 951)

seemed to me that you either cut a little less than you need or almost clear through the carrier. No happy medium.

Welcome from Idaho. If you have been working with vinyl for 7 years then you have more real world experience than a lot of us on the forum. Looking forward to your input and knowledge....."you have been assimilated"....

Ya that looks great! I here you on the chrome. It's like it's almost a plastic layer.

I wear it on the back of my carhart jacket and get lots of attention on the jobsites. My day job is gen manager for an earthwork company. We are not by any stretch huge but have spent several million on cat equipment so I am a fan also and got the wild hare to build that one. I'll pm it to you if you want it for personal use.

Eazy - we totally hijacked your thread, sorry man!

I have Illustrator CS5 but couldn't swing the price tag on PS or the whole suite since I really don't use it much. If I upgrade to the cloud I will be able to get and use all the formats but I hate having to make a monthly payment so i have been avoiding it. While there is a slight variation in the nodes, your way gets it done as efficient as any. The only thing I see is that most aren't going to have PS or have the ability to use it as good as you obviously can. I guess saying that, Illustrator isn't known for being an easy program either. LOL I have a copy of CS2 on another computer but there are enough things lacking compared to CS5 that I don't use it unless I have to. I see some real sweet text manipulation options in the CC version that are making me drool and one of these days.....they will be mine....he he he.

I opened your file and worked over the top your version and made one from scratch in illustrator. I just got close with the text and didn't spend the time to match it exactly but close enough to compare the two. There is a little difference between the finished node layout. It is especially evident in the circles. The trace has numerous nodes and the scratch has 4. TestText_03.eps

I don't doubt that there are better tracing options out there than Illy and I have seen Inkscape do a better job and I have even seen SCALP do a great job tracing. I think if you play around long enough you maybe bet there with illy tracing but you have to realize it isn't necessarily designed to be a trace engine that is just one small feature. Kind of like saying PS is for text manipulation, good at it and even has a few tools that some text programs don't offer but at heart it is a photo editor. Illustrator is for building things from scratch. It excels at that. It isn't even really a sign makers software although it is probably equal to any out there. I see features in the full blown version of Flexi that are missing in Illustrator like easy block shadows and cast shadows. Both can be done with illustrator but its more work because those are very specialized and handy for full on sign work but very little other practical application. So I guess my point is that I agree that illy doesn't trace as great as you would think a program that costs that much should but I really don't trace much so it hasn't been a big factor for me and I just deal with the tracing results or I go open up Inkscape and run a trace through there and see if it look better.

You are right there are exceptions to everything. And your skills in PS are amazing so props to you on that. Can you do an experiment for me? Do a line of text just like you did then in illustrator type out the same thing in the same font and convert it to curves and compare the node placement. It would be way cool to see the difference. I don't have photoshop and just work in Aperture which is ok but can't do some of the things you can do with PS. I may upgrade to CC later this year and would have access to PS and will be able to play around with it more.

I can only speak with any degree of knowledge about Illustrator. I believe that Inkscape is very similar. In Illy, you have a few options. One being the text on a path. This is the best method to use in most instances because the text stays in an editable "live text" mode and has no distortion. You can still edit the letters, size, kerning and font until you are totally happy with it and convert to outlines. There are a couple other options that you can use which are Arc and Arch and these will cause distortion which in some cases is desirable. Arc will stretch the text into an arc and makes the bottom and top of the text into a nice smooth arc along with the letters. The top of the letters are stretched a bit to allow all this to happen. Arch will cause a rise in the middle of the text and leave the letters basically straight up and down and like the Arc option is suitable for some looks, I have seen a lot of pro ball teams do this. You can still edit these other options but it's a little more hidden to get to and a pain. Text on a path is my fav and most used although there are a lot of variables in AI so you have to learn what you are doing to use it with perfect results. Once mastered it's no biggie. You can also make your text into a brush if you know the text and don't need to change it and you can just apply the brush to the path, this approach is cool but getting well into the more experienced level of AI. For the record no tracing is going to yield good results on text. I try not to auto trace anything that can reasonably be redrawn in a decent amount of time. Circles and other simple objects are always cleaner if you just redraw them.

I am a proponent of using small radius' at tight corners particularly if they are tighter than 90 deg. You don't have to but I think it helps the drag knife a little, but it could be my imagination. Like the little people I see that no one else can. I build my file without worrying about it and then go back and add a node on each side of the corner and then remove the very corner. I don't do it on square corners as often because the node will just be a corner node and it won't make a radius without extra fiddling around. Does that make any sense?

The triangles will make themselves after you weld the rectangles. That's homework time Tooter. Draw a long skinny rectangle, rotate it close and then node edit each corner individually until they match up with one of the elements in this design. Repeat until you have them all then select them all and weld them together.

There is always a solution to any problem you are facing. Don't do it dude we are here for you.