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I have seen the future!


Vlamgat9

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I can't believe this has taken so long for someone to do (I had been thinking about an online decal bank but never had the energy to do anything about it)

Click on the link below and go to the section entitled "R.J. Caruana Decal Artwork - Buccaneer added" in the "What's New" bit for some seriously useful decals to print off at home....

Model Airplane International

I LOVE THIS IDEA!

Edited by Vlamgat9
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Watch out before you print them though, as I noticed quite a lot of compression artifacting in the reds. You might need to clear those up in an editing package before printing, as they look like they could show up pretty badly if not corrected. ;)

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Jeepers - i hope this isnt contagious, it sounds serious!

Just don't save yourself as a low quality .jpg, and you'll be fine... oh, and put a condom on each finger when you use your keyboard ;)

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Just don't save yourself as a low quality .jpg, and you'll be fine... oh, and put a condom on each finger when you use your keyboard ;)

How do I ensure it isn't a low quality jpg???

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How do I ensure it isn't a low quality jpg???

Usually, when you're saving a .jpg, a settings window pops up & gives you the option of 1 to 12. Just make sure you save yourself as a 10+ for high quality printing, or 6+ for web pages.

I suspect that someone that didn't know much about what the decal image would be used for saved it as a lower quality to save a bit of space on the server, and to speed up download. Little did he/she know that he/she was buggering it up for some people to use. :doh:

I suggest we all email them at [email protected] to ask them to re-publish it at a higher quality.

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Absolutely great idea!!! Not necessarily for the finer images, but what about serials and codes? Just having the various lettering styles on hand to then create pretty much any aircraft would be a fabulous idea!!

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I suggest we all email them at [email protected] to ask them to re-publish it at a higher quality.

I agree this is a great idea. I just followed the link and it looks like they've seen the issue with the compression and are trying to rectify (there is a note to that effect at the very foot of the page). Now where did I put that ink jet decal paper?

Cheers

MarkC

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I agree this is a great idea. I just followed the link and it looks like they've seen the issue with the compression and are trying to rectify (there is a note to that effect at the very foot of the page). Now where did I put that ink jet decal paper?

Cheers

MarkC

Looks like they are rectifying them, if you click on the images it now comes up as error on page.

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Absolutely great idea!!! Not necessarily for the finer images, but what about serials and codes? Just having the various lettering styles on hand to then create pretty much any aircraft would be a fabulous idea!!

Mark all the lettering fonts are available on line from various places including RAF, US Navy and USAF with or without stencil sets.

Ted

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Richard's put TIFs up here:

http://rjcaviationart.googlepages.com/dec

Is it my imagination, or can I still see artifacts in the roundels? - yes, but only if you click on the graphic. If you click on the links above & below, you get the option to download & they come out all crispy. Not sure whether they're big enough to make smooth decals, but if someone could confirm or deny, that would be very useful :)

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OK silly question. Must these be printed on WHITE decal sheet, or are we assuming an anti flash white finish, so clear sheet will do as the white will show through on the roundels? My printer doesn't do white.

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I wondered about that... if you're doing a white Bucc, you're in luck (excuse the rhyme there), but otherwise you'd either need to print on white, or cut some circles/shapes out of white decal film to act as backing, along the lines of those sometimes provided with AM decal sheets. Personally, I'd be tempted by the latter.

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Is it my imagination, or can I still see artifacts in the roundels? - yes, but only if you click on the graphic. If you click on the links above & below, you get the option to download & they come out all crispy. Not sure whether they're big enough to make smooth decals, but if someone could confirm or deny, that would be very useful :)

Just checked them here at work - they're 200 dpi, so that would explain the "artifacts". There's a degree of aliasing there. They'd need to be 600 dpi or above to give a really smooth result.

However, I do have a plugin for Photoshop at home that can upsample incredibly well, so I'll give that a shot and see if it makes a difference. I'll post the result (or a small section of it - don't want to step on any copyright toes) if I think it's worthwhile.

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OK silly question. Must these be printed on WHITE decal sheet, or are we assuming an anti flash white finish, so clear sheet will do as the white will show through on the roundels? My printer doesn't do white.

It all depends if white has been used as a colour or not. If there no white specifically used the any background colour will, and sometimes does anyway, shine thruogh. I wonder what the guys at Model Alliance and Xtradecal think of this?

Mildly dischuffed comes to mind.......

Tony :clif:

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Mildly dischuffed comes to mind.......

Probably but it's only one decal sheet a month and it isn't like every month is going to be a British combat jet. The subjects are likely to vary quite widely. I don't think they should worry unduly.

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If they are upset, they should have produced the stuff before to fill a hole in the market. Their loss.

Having printed this off, I presume one should varnish it prior to use, to seal the inks?

Edited by bentwaters81tfw
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Its a good idea in principal but I can't see it being a challenge to aftermarket decals on the basis that, while today's printers have pretty good colour accuracy, four-colour process is not as accurate as an absolute dead on spot colour using Pantone inks. The Airfix and MA Nimrod roundels both used the same Pantone number, but one was printed process, the other spot colour, and there was a big difference in how they turned out.

I think anyone thinking they can scan whole sheets and then print out as many copies (for personal use) as they need is going to come up against some major problems, not least having a white base trap for all the other colours, and until inkjets start using white cartridges (much like the ALPS printers), then anything other than black is going to be problematical.

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