Quote:

Here is the original pattern that the decal will be made from. Please feel free to correct the obvious errors that exist! I could certainly use your help!



Kind of hard to do anything with a 72ppi jpg file.

I sort of figured that was your artwork over the image of the decal. Still hard to really tell much from that jpg. I'd need the original image plus the Illustrator file to REALLY check it out.

Seriously, I'm not trying to bust your balls about this. However, if I can still see red around your art, then it is not exact. Right? Picky? Yes. Good enough for most things? Yes. Good enough for some of things I've done in the past (at my job)? No. Flat out, probably rejected by the customer. I've been in printing since I was 18... I am currently 40. So 22 years of doing art work, logo reproduction, copy camera, stripping (film assembly), printing, and other things I can't discuss.

Yes, MAC, Illustrator is the playing field of choice for this type of work. However, FWIW, You might not have had to go that far. It would have been really nice if you could have taken one of the original stickers off without damaging it. Then scan it at like 400% at 1200ppi. (Your method of high quality image could work as well, but I'd prefer the scan. ) Take it into photoshop, clean it up a bit, separate the two colors in grayscale and save 'em as a bitmap image. Place 'em in Quark (yuck).. colorize your red and lay 'em out and print. You probably wouldn't have had to redraw anything and it would be 100% exact. That is what I would have tried.

You must understand that this is a petpeave (spelling?) of mine. For years I have worked with people in the industry that are so-called artists. Some even come from a art college background and still they cannot actually DRAW in Photoshop, Illustrator or Freehand. Some people just don't know how to, or can't grasp the concept of point placement/location and handle/paddle control. In the time it takes most people to find a font that is "close", I can actually draw the type in Illustrator (over a scan).