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Custom Decals


souda99

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Evening Ladies & Gents,

 

I have a question for you all, if this isn't the right sub I do apologize in advance. I'm looking for info specifically from the folks that print their own decals. What software (i.e. Illustrator, Corel, Photoshop) do you use? My wife has made sure I'm good on options for printing, since I have shown interest in making my own decals for a dio that I want to do she has made sure I have an inkjet, laser and two ALPS printers. Now I just need a program that I can use to make custom decals and possibly Photo-Etch. Thank you for the assistance.

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I use Corel Draw, though I doubt you'll need all the features of the latest full edition. The student version should be sufficient, or an out of date full version. Have a look on eBay for those. However, whatever you get you'll have to spend a lot of time learning how to use the features you want. It's not simple to produce great decals!

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I like Inkscape as it is free and much simpler to use than many of the professional packages. I am a real amateur at making decals, however I made the following fairly easily after a few trial goes:

 

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HTH

 

Mike

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I'm another Corel Draw user and I'm very happy with it. The version I'm using is X3, that is pretty old now but still does all that I need and more (much more...).

What I like about the Corel package is the capability of importing bitmaps and converting them into vector drawings, very useful for certain complicated things like nose arts and insignia.

Inkscape is not bad at all and as others have said it's completely free. Personally I still prefer Corel Draw, but may just be that I'm more used to this.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Inkscape is the way to go, at least for me. But, if you are doing, for example, squadron badges or other  complicated shapes I suggest to do waht I did: get the best photo you can of the sahpe you want to convert to decal and hire a professional to do the raster-to-vector conversion. There are lots out the on the web. I found one on https://www.fiverr.com I got some images converted for less than $15 (for us living in CrazyTown USA) and then you can reshape in Inkscape.


Ber aware, Inkscape has its issues, specially on Windows 10, and their raster to vector features are still in need of some polishing.

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