Need advise on printing out my chapter symbol

[ant7]

Ok, after much cursing and time I have created a chapter symbol for my Dark Wolves (baring a bit of touching up) using the GIMP program. My question is can someone tell me how to make multiples of this image, say for instance on Tubals decal template?

Thanks for any help in advance.

[chenley]

I used microsoft paint to multiply some decals that I wanted for several units/armies. It worked ok, not highest quality but on a shoulder pad you don't notice anyways.

 

But make sure to print out on plain paper first to make sure that it prints the way you want it to (nothing cut off, centered, using as much as the paper as possible).

[ant7]

ok thanks

[Gurth]

Stay away from Microsoft Paint if you have anything else — it is really the kind of last resort application that you should only touch if you can't find any other graphics program at all :)

 

And since you use GIMP, here's how to duplicate your image:

1. Enlarge the canvas: You need to make your image big enough to hold as many copies of the logo as you need. Click on the Image menu and then on Canvas size… after which you can supply a height and width of the image as you need it — there is a dropdown list in which you can choose the measurements you prefer to make this easier. Then click on the Resize button to actually change the size of the image.
   
2. Duplicate the layer: Your chapter symbol will be on a layer; if you duplicate the layer, you have two and can move them independently on the image. Go to the Layers window (press Ctrl+L to show it if necessary) in which you should see a list with one item in it, probably called "Background". If you press Shift+Ctrl+D, you will now see two layers in this list — you just made a copy! You won't see this yet, though, because the copy is in the exact same location as the original.
   
3. Move the new layer: Select the Move tool by pressing the M key. Now use the mouse to click on your chapter symbol in the image and drag it around — this will move one of the two, so you can position it where you want it to be.
   
4. Repeat as necessary: Repeat steps 2 and 3 as many times as needed.
   
5. Done.
   

 

Oh, and when you save this file, it's best to do so as an XCF file, not a JPEG, PNG, or whatever. If you use XCF format, the layers will be preserved so you can much more easily change things later.

[Iron Father Rik]

All else I'll add, is make sure that the images, when printed out, will be small enough to fit on a shoulder pad. It seems like common sense, but remember you have to take into account the curve of the pad, and large decals wrinkle and don't lie smoothly on the pad.

[ant7]

thanks all for the help, Gurth thanks I appreciate the detailed reply, I am not at all familiar with GIMP and I have been learning what little I know through trial and error. Your breakdown really helps. I wll give it a shot.

[WingsOfTheFalcon]

Stay away from Microsoft Paint if you have anything else — it is really the kind of last resort application that you should only touch if you can't find any other graphics program at all :)

 

And since you use GIMP, here's how to duplicate your image:

1. Enlarge the canvas: You need to make your image big enough to hold as many copies of the logo as you need. Click on the Image menu and then on Canvas size… after which you can supply a height and width of the image as you need it — there is a dropdown list in which you can choose the measurements you prefer to make this easier. Then click on the Resize button to actually change the size of the image.
   
2. Duplicate the layer: Your chapter symbol will be on a layer; if you duplicate the layer, you have two and can move them independently on the image. Go to the Layers window (press Ctrl+L to show it if necessary) in which you should see a list with one item in it, probably called "Background". If you press Shift+Ctrl+D, you will now see two layers in this list — you just made a copy! You won't see this yet, though, because the copy is in the exact same location as the original.
   
3. Move the new layer: Select the Move tool by pressing the M key. Now use the mouse to click on your chapter symbol in the image and drag it around — this will move one of the two, so you can position it where you want it to be.
   
4. Repeat as necessary: Repeat steps 2 and 3 as many times as needed.
   
5. Done.
   

 

Oh, and when you save this file, it's best to do so as an XCF file, not a JPEG, PNG, or whatever. If you use XCF format, the layers will be preserved so you can much more easily change things later.

The only thing I would add to this is once your second layer is in place then use the 'merge down' option in your layers toolbox, that way you would copy two symbols from the layer rather than one. If you keep repeating this process the number of symbols will scale much faster (2,4,8,16,32 etc)

[Gurth]

I am not at all familiar with GIMP and I have been learning what little I know through trial and error.

The best way to learn how to do something is by having something you want to make, like you are now. You learn a lot more by messing around with a program when trying to create something you actually need, than when you're just trying out some things to see what they do.

 

Oh, and one thing I forgot before: you probably want to make sure the image background is transparent, including the areas around the chapter symbol. If your symbol is on, for example, a white background, and you are duplicating a layer, you may find one layer obscuring another even though the actual symbols would not. (If the background is white, you can easily do this by setting each layer to "darken" in the Layers window — this means it will only show those areas that are darker than what it underneath, so white will disappear if it overlaps any other colour.)

[ant7]

Gurth-Ok I'll try to remember that, One problem I ran into though is that I enlarged the image considerabley to erase some of the background from the main image and then reduced it to see what it looked like. Then when I enlarged it again the outlines were blurry. I am not sure what I did.

[WingsOfTheFalcon]

Your problem there is that the image became rasterised. GIMP isn't a vector based graphics program so it doesn't handle enlarging things particularly well. If you need to view something closer use the zoom function. I think you hold CTRL and roll your mousewheel to zoom in or out.

[Gurth]

Then when I enlarged it again the outlines were blurry. I am not sure what I did.

You said it yourself: you enlarged the image. Any time you are working with pixel-based images, enlarging is bad because there is nothing in between pixels, but something does need to be added there when you enlarge. Put simply, the way programs solve this is by averaging what is on either side to get an acceptable result, which means things get blurry because it's an average. This gets worse if you then reduce the size again, because the blurry areas that were added will be kept in the image so you get blurs where there were none before.

 

Like WingsOfTheFalcon said, zoom in rather than enlarging. This gives you a closer look at what you're doing without actually scaling the image, and that avoids the problem completely.

[ant7]

Wingsofthe Falcon, Gurth- Thanks I need all the help I can get.