Good Evening modelers!I come to share with you an elixir of life! Or at least, one of proper signage, one that pours from the cup of everyday tools. As you in the diner have heard, I've recently offered up making decals for people. It's come up so here;s my tutorial.
Disclaimer:
Now, for those not using MS office, you'll need help from elsewhere. If you have Adobe Photoshop, and know anything about it, you're more ahead than I am. Part 1 will include the basics. I'll put up a second article using Photoshop to further the quality. If you model N scale, you'll probably need Photoshop or Paintshop. (which may become a part 3 if needed. I don't have it on this program) All you need is Word, Paint, the car or surface your making decals for, and a ruler for today's lesson. I'll be making decals for an HO Freedom train 1947. Those in N, don't feel left out. You may just need to change a few steps, and I'm too tired tonight.
Part 1:
Basic functions
First of all,. You need to know your canvas. Meseure the surface your working with. The Athearn Blue Box HW baggage car's center stripe that's going to be my basis is 10 and a quarter inches. By ¼
Next, open word. Make sure the MS word ruler is enabled. If its not, have the help section take over. Now, set your view up to 150 percent. Make sure the Word Doc is in Print Layout (if you can see grey around the edges, you're good)
Now with your mesurements, line up the shapes you may need for your design with the side and top rulers.(skip the text for later)( your working in N scale, save your eyes and make it nice and big) If your using Metric, and Word is not, go to tools>>Options>>general tab>>>measurement (it's a drop-down) Looks like this:
Now that the field is set, let's make that decal.
Three 10 ¼ by ¼ boxes were made. And assembled per the prototype
At this point, save the Word Doc. Next, select your shapes and feel free to Hold down the shift button, and click on every image you need. This will select them all. Right click over the shapes, select copy, and open an MS Paint page, and paste the image in. From there, use the free select tool, and select and drag the shapes to where they need to fit. Such can be done in Word, but this is easier.
If you have text, It's time. Go to Image>>Draw Opaque, and make sure it's NOT checked. Select a color from the palatte below or from Color>>Select Color. Then draw a text box over your shape. Type in whatever you need. Open the Text toolbar. Make sure the textbox is still slected. If you can't see it, hit the Undo button now. Once you have typed in what you want, and it's the right color, click on the font dropdown shown here:
See the box in blue? Says Ausburger on it? As long as tnhat's in blue, you can use the arrow buttons on your keyboard or the scrolly wheel in your mouse to cycle through the fonts until you find the one you like/need.
Save the file in Paint as a JPEG
Once you have the font set and shapes aligned, you're done. Save the picture again, and either print it off on decal paper, or possibly something called decal it. I ‘d like to do some research on the second option. If you use decal paper, I'd suggest running a full 8 ½ by 11 page of various designs so as to not waste. Do this by Inserting pictures from your file, and adjusting them to fit on the paper. Leave room for you to cut them out.
That's all for now. Tommarrow, we'll cover changing to smaller scales, and adjusting resolutions. This is vital for N scalers, because decals being shtrunk byt the normal methods of Word and Paint, will make it pixel badly. I;'d suggest finding Photshop for this one kiddies.
G'night all! Try the Veal in the Diner!
-Morgan
Very interesting. Looking forward to more.
Thanks for the hard work and sharing it.
Thanks for posting this. I'll need to make up red stripes to go above and below the windows of my "soon to be" Penn Central Metroliners. http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=46641&nseq=58
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"
loathar wrote:Cool! I was just getting ready to ask a MS Word question. I'm placing pictures into word. Do you know how to move a picture around on the page once you've inserted it? I can highlight it and get the resize buttons, but I can't figure out how to place it where I want it on the sheet.
Thanks for posting this. Maybe this will help me to make some basic decals for my old American Flyer cars.
Just one question. I've heard of the ink coming off the paper before when it gets soaked. Does it need some sort of clear coat before you soak the decal under water?
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Darth Santa Fe wrote: Thanks for posting this. Maybe this will help me to make some basic decals for my old American Flyer cars.Just one question. I've heard of the ink coming off the paper before when it gets soaked. Does it need some sort of clear coat before you soak the decal under water?
I've not heard of that. Make sure your using Wet Transfer decal paper if your using water.
JK: I have to disagree. You MIGHT get a better look, but even the N scales are turning out great. If you want to spend extra on the finer paper and the cost of copying, then yeah. But I don't think it's neccesary.
Your welcome both of you. I appreciate the praise from the coach master Antonio.
And now, I give you all
Part 2 The Adobe Photoshop function.
There are a few things that Word/Paint can't do. Including cleaning up pixels, and changing colors. I'll go over several quickee lessons. First off is a brief overview in buttons/ Then we'kll get to the Nscalers, where we'll make decals smaller.
If you hold down Ctrl and the + or - keys, this controls your zoom. You may need to toggle this after recolors, as you may wind up looking at a giant white spot in back.
A note on saving in Photoshop When saving a pic as a JPEG, It'll give you a funny box asking how you want to save it. So long as the drag is ion the middle, you don't need to worry about it and hit okay
Der John has been gratious enough to allow me to use the RailLink Decals.
(WIP pic used)
I'll skip assembly, it went much like part one, we'll skip to the maple leaf. The one I started with was much to large. And in order to get it to fit to words, simply dragging the corners wouldn't work. picture became horrid looking. In steps phtoshop. So copy or open your picture, do a File>>>New or File>>>Open, to shrink an image, go to Image>> Image size.
Click on it. Follow the steps in the pic below
Simple. The maple leaf turned out to need to be about 25 pixels. You'll need to do some guesswork on this. Phtoshop will shrink an entire page, no just the item you want. Also know that when you paste things, Adobe stacks them in layers. to merge layers, go to Layers on the top of the page>>Merge Visible. then it;'s all one and you can cut & lasso the way you do in Paint. I have not figured out how to do texts in PS so you'll need to make them and transfer them into Photoshop and do this to them as well.
Once you have it all assembled, follow the steps to shrink the entire shape to the size you need. Abnd voila. Paste the image in Word, and make those decals!
So what happens if I want to change a color on something?
the classic recolor. Not neccecarily important for Decals, but it can make things easier for you. If you're using a pic from online, and want to change it to another color, You'll definately need Photoshop for this. We'll take this tutoruial with another Turbotrain. Maybe Rapido could join in? (I can dream can't I?)
Step one is getting a picture. I happen to have the color guide for the New Haven trainset. on hand. Open it in Photoshop. Now, use the color selector seen above, and get rid of the background. Be careful though, as some backgrtounds match other colors and may take a part of the shape. You'll want the lasso for that. And possibly someone with a steady hand if that isn't you.
This Turbo's going into Big Sky Blue to make it easy. I already started it, but we'll reconstruct. I used the lasso and started at an edge of the Turbo cab. I circled around the top, and wound up at the edge on the other side. if you pause, it will add a straight line to connect the tow points. So I did. (added extra cars using the copy/paste in Paint)
From here, we need to change it to a nutral grey. (not always neccecary, see later. Just easier) To di that, follow the drop downs.
next, one needs to get into the color pallette. Experiment wit the four sliders to get the result you want.
See the drop down? you have a selection of several base colors. Pick the best that matches the color you're trying to change. Grey's are easist because they're nutral. But you can select reds etc, but the differing shades may mess you up
We'll do the same thing to the white line underneath. So I won't kill the forum and repost pictures
Then we get to the color selector. After clicking on the color you want changed, it'll look something like this:
Go back to the desaturate>>>Selective color and play around.
To add the logo, I fish one off the internet. Then we remove the background be selecitng the color, having it expand to hidden colors,
The results:
Well, I do believe that about sums up all I know about Photoshop. It get;'s you through the basics. If you have any questions, fee free to ask! And I'm always willing to make decals for ya.
Happy Decalling!
Darth Santa Fe wrote: Just one question. I've heard of the ink coming off the paper before when it gets soaked. Does it need some sort of clear coat before you soak the decal under water?
Yes, you need to seal the decals. It says so right in the directions. You do read the directions, right? Well, I didn't, which is why my first decal completely dissolved the moment it hit the water. Then, I did as was told and coated the decals with Microscale Liquid Decal Film.
One thing I just discovered - the paper will always want to curl up, at least a bit. Before you put on the Liquid Decal Film, put a metal ruler, straightedge, etc., on the sheet to hold it perfectly flat. This way, the decals won't run when you apply the film. Leave the ruler on until the film is dry.
And here's a little "Darth" trivia: "Vader" is Dutch for "Father."
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
jktrains wrote:A better solution is to print onto high quality photo paper at you best resolution. Then take that page to a copy shop and have them photocopy it onto your decal paper with a color laser copier. A light coat of dullcoat to seal the toner from flaking and your good to go.
I think you got something here. My decals from the inkjet printer are translucent, no matter how saturated or thick it is printed, so the colors change considerably depending on the color of the surface behind the decal. Am I correct in assuming that the ink from a lazer printer or copier is not transulcent?
DC
http://uphonation.com
dcfixer wrote:I think you got something here. My decals from the inkjet printer are translucent, no matter how saturated or thick it is printed, so the colors change considerably depending on the color of the surface behind the decal. Am I correct in assuming that the ink from a lazer printer or copier is not transulcent?
Since I work in the copy industry, I'll field this one.
Unfortunately, all of the color inks/toners I've encountered so far ARE slightly translucent. They rely on the background color of the stock they're printed on to bring them out, which is why colors printed on white are always brighter than colors printed on other colors of paper.
The only method *I* know of to get truly opaque decals is screen printing.
Robert Beaty
The Laughing Hippie
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The CF-7...a waste of a perfectly good F-unit!
Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the
end of your tunnel, Was just a freight train coming
your way. -Metallica, No Leaf Clover
Here's my solution to the "white is clear" and "colors are translucent" problems. Instead of applying the decal directly, I first paint a white rectangle where the decal will go (assuming, that is, that the decal is rectangular.)
When the decal is applied, the white background mimics the white "paper" that the printer thinks it's got loaded. So, all the white space, which comes out clear on the decal, now is white since it shows right through. Thinner, paler colors come out right, also, because they have the white background that the printer expects.
This "wood plank fence," by the way, was made from coffee stirrers. I stained the wood with a white stain to which I'd added a bit of India Ink to get a weathered, gray wood look. I used cheap acrylic paint to apply the white rectangles prior to adding the decals. Of course, here I wanted an old, beat-up look to the signs. For a clean, smooth, new look, you need a smooth surface and a good-quality paint job. You might even want to apply a satin or gloss overcoat to get a very good surface if you're decalling an engine or car that you want to look new.
This trolley has home-made decals, too, but applied to a glossy coat of paint. For this one, I used Microsoft Word to print "Moose Bay Transit Authority," using the "Goldrush" font that I found on-line. I set the font color to match the trim color of the trolley. (For new members, you can get a better view of my pictures by clicking on them.)
Not a clue on priinting, but could one make/set a background after it's done?
Flashwave wrote: Not a clue on priinting, but could one make/set a background after it's done?
I'm not sure what you're asking here. Yes, you can apply a background to the graphic on the computer, but the problem is the printer. Today's printers all assume that you're using white paper, so they have no ability to actually print white. If you are using a pale color, they again assume that the background is white, so you only need a little bit of ink to get the desired shade.
You can get decal paper with a white background. However, then you have to use your scissors precisely to get the shape you want around the outside edge of the decal. I find it awfully difficult to cut a circle with a pair of scissors.
Well, I have tried my ink jet, laser copying and printing on a Phaser (wax). They all produced a translucent decal. So, I searched for someone to make them for me, and found Stan at Cedarleaf Custom Railroad Decals. I found a font at railfonts.com for $15, and for $28.50 more I got enough UP, Pullman letters and numbers to do 6 cars. I did the art work on MS Word, emailed the file and font to him, paid by PayPal, and less than a week later I had the decals of my choice. He did an awesome job, and is a real nice, helpful guy. Kudos to Stan.
As far as I'm concerned, the decal issue is closed.
I spelled Stan's last name wrong in my last post, and I apologize for any inconvenience. It is Stan Cedarleaf at Cedarleaf Custom Railroad Decals. I corrected my original post. (another senior moment )