ReproArtwork.pdf

8/10/2019 ReproArtwork.pdf

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1 Insights from the Experts

Reproducing artwork

Mike Clarke

I come from the awards, engraving, and promotional industries. In these industries, wetend to have little time to be creative with our artwork. Our job is to get the

customers ideas down on paper, quickly turn them into something usable, and get the

product out the door. Most of our customers fight setup charges, and for this reason,

we cannot spend a lot of time fine-tuning our artwork. Thus, I have decided to focus

my tutorial on the number of ways I can reproduce artwork for a job.

One thing I always tell people during training is that CorelDRAW usually provides at

least two different ways of doing the same job. Which way is best depends on what you

are more comfortable with.

Recently, a customer came to me and indicated that a client of his wanted a name badgereproduced. What made this job unique for my customer was that all he had to work

with was the original badge provided by the client. Ah, does this sound familiar! In

addition, the client did not want to pay for art charges, because he had already paid for

them with his previous supplier, who was now gone. I got from my customer a small

JPG photo with the name badge that needed to be reproduced (see Figure 1).

Figure 1

The dilemma for my customer was twofold: (1) he did not have the original artwork,

and (2) he had to cut the badge to shape, which meant that he had to create a vector

outline of the original badge shape.

Typically, re-creating a logo can be quite a chore, but if you get the type style right the

job becomes easy. I did not have time to peruse my font books, so I took the easy way

out: instead of searching my font repository, I went to the Web and was able to find a

good black-and-white bitmap of the logo.

When it comes to laser engraving, you can use a bitmap. However, I like to use vector

information whenever possible. I find that vector objects are reproduced by laser better


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Insights from the Experts 2

than bitmap images. Also, if I were sending this to my rotary engraving machine, I

would need a good vector reproduction of the logo. Because I had a good

black-and-white image of the logo, and I knew that CorelDRAW has implemented an

awesome new bitmap-to-vector conversion engine, I decided to convert the bitmap into

a vector image (Bitmaps Trace Bitmap). This engine provides a nearly flawless

conversion from pixel to vector line. If your artwork is good, your vector image will be

good. Figure 2 shows a preview of the traced image.

Figure 2

I can work with several parameters to fine-tune the image based on the quality of the

artwork (see Figure 3). Again, a lot of these settings depend on your artwork and how

you feel the image looks best.

Figure 3


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To make sure that I positioned the logo properly, I superimposed the traced logo on top

of the original logo. I always find that it is easiest to position the original image when I

am in wire-frame mode. I also find it necessary to work with the Object Manager.

Here is how I did it. First, I placed the original Perkins name badge photo on its own

layer. Next, I locked out that layer so that I could not select the original logo byaccident. Then, I created a new layer and imported the traced logo into that layer. (For

housekeeping, when you name layers, make sure that the layer name indicates what is

in that layer.) Figure 4 shows the logo superimposed over the original image.

Figure 4

By the time the image was finished, I had created a number of layers (see Figure 5).

Figure 5

Once the logo was created, I needed to create the badge outline shape to use in cutting

out the badge. This outline can be created in one of four ways in CorelDRAW.

The first way to create the outline is to use the Weld and Trim commands. Figure 6

shows the setup of the shapes that I would use to create the final outline.


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Figure 6

Notice that I took the time to place in a lot of guidelines, so that I could use the snapto guidelines setting. This allowed me to position more accurately the objects that I

intended to weld. Coming up with the final image, as shown in Figure 7, took a few

clicks. First, I had to weld the two rectangles together. Next, I welded the welded

rectangles and the circle together. Once this was done, I drew in a rectangle to

accommodate the bottom of the badge. Then, I needed to trim that to the welded circle

and rectangles. Once this was done, I chose the Shape tool, selected the two bottom

nodes on the triangle, and dragged them down to create the full bottom rectangle of

the badge.

Figure 7

Using the Weld command is fine, but is there another way? Well, there is always

another way when it comes to CorelDRAW. One tool that I really like is the Virtual

Segment Delete tool, which was introduced in version 12. You can find this tool located

with the Crop tool in the toolbox. The nice thing about this tool is that all you need to

do is click the overlapping lines, and only those lines are deleted. I now use this tool a


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lot more than I use the Weld and Trim commands. Figure 8 shows a partial shape

completed.

Figure 8

Okay, Ive shown you two ways to create the outline. How about a third? No problem.

Thanks to the new Trace feature in CorelDRAW, I can take the badge and create an

outline, as shown in Figure 9. Because of the shadow background, this method of

creating the outline requires some clean-up time.

Figure 9

Finally, if necessary, I can digitize around the original badge. This is quite easy and

quick, because I can use the wire-frame image as my template. Remember the days ofusing tracing paper to trace an object? Well, this method is exactly the same. Figure 10

shows part of the image redrawn in CorelDRAW. The Snap To Objects command and

the dynamic guidelines (View Dynamic Guides) make digitizing so much easier.

Figure 10 shows that when I get to an intersection of two guidelines, CorelDRAW lets


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me know that it is an intersection, so I know that this is exactly where I want to place

a point on my Bzier curve.

Figure 10

What made this exercise so easy is that I took the time to use the guidelines in

CorelDRAW to map out the intersections of where my points needed to go. Once theguidelines were in, it took me 30 seconds to create the outline of the badge shape.

Now I could place a name in the badge. I typed in the text Mike Clarke, and then I

center-justified the text. (This is important. If the text is not center-justified and you

make changes to it, it is no longer centered in the image because only one end adjusts.)

I then placed the text in the badge and selected both the badge shape and the text.

Next, I hit the hot keys C and E to center the text in the middle of the badge shape.

I adjusted the text a little to get it exactly where I wanted it. I tried to keep the text

centered in the rectangular part of the badge.

Figure 11 shows the six sample badges that I designed for the customer.


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Figure 11

Figure 12 shows a name badge in which I used a silver foil for the fill of the logo. To do

this, I took out the black fill and placed a hairline-width pen line for my laser.

Figure 12

Thanks to some excellent tools in CorelDRAW, I was able to turn a customer problem

into a finished product in less than 20 minutes. Examples like these show why I and therest of the awards and engraving industry have standardized our equipment around

CorelDRAW.


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About the author

Mike Clarke has been in the awards and

engraving industry since 1970, when he

worked in his familys trophy business. In1988, he joined his father in running and

developing a sales agency. Their product line

consists of rotary and laser engraving

machines, engraving supplies, cast medallions

and lapel pins, trophy parts, and solid wood

items. Their clients include AT Designs,

Caldwell Recognition, Engravers Express, and

Elite Awards. Mike has been writing articles on

CorelDRAW for the industry trade magazineThe Engravers Journal for the last three years.

He also offers on-site training in CorelDRAW

and other programs.

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