Jürgen Welz
jwelz at hotmail.com
Thu Dec 22 09:44:51 CST 2005
Gustav/William: Thanks for the tips. I've got to say the Font Editor I downloaded was fabulously easy to work with. I imported a Tif, the application generated a pure vector outline, and then showed the Tif as a watermark under the vector layer so I could fine tune a few of the vectors, which were damned near perfect. It seems to me that the old Corel Trace faciility in Corel Draw 3 and 4 did exactly the same kind of automaitic outline generation thing. I wonder whether PSP could change CDR files to WMF? At least with the font editor and old Corel, I could generate a pure vector outline with a couple menu choices. I had assumed this would be trivial with a newer program, especially if I made it easy by first converting the file to a 2 color (pure black and white) and the shapes really are quite simple block characters. The 'O' for example, is simply four outside radius corners joined by straight line segments and the inside of the 'O' is identical but obviously smaller, and the result is presented at a simple fixed italic angle. This PSP-X of which I downloaded a 30 day trial starts OK as a vector, but the import sucked. I imagine I could layer a vector only layer over a raster layer that I delete after and generate the vectors freehand and by defining points. But this was completely automatic in the Font program (High Logic), including generating a very creditable outline with quite a limited number of defined points. Old Corel Draw Trace would have done virtually the same. I downloaded both applications as 30 day trials and the font program took me one hour from install to excellent output, with a great pdf manual with tons of interesting information about fonts. I am left resolving the different colored underline of the 'Swoop'. PSP instantly converts my vector graphics to raster the moment I flood fill a solid color and the resulting files do not approach the ouline quality that our current straight line segmented WMF files do when saved at a realistic size. I guess I'm going to have to spend more time figuring out how to color a bounded polygon with a solid color without rasterizing as this must be possible. I would never have approved the graphics generated by the collateral subcontractor and fought their ridiculous concept that we use 1.5 megabtye graphic files on all our documents and the WMF files at 1.7K have straight line segments without a single bezier curve even though there are curves in three of the characters and in the swoop. They finally terminated the contract with the subcontractor and, based on my criticism, figured that I knew better and have allowed me the option of rolling my own. Now I've got a bunch of new divisions rolling out Jan 1. When a plane crashes because a wing falls off, I'm enough of an expert to know that there is a problem, but it doesn't mean I know how to fix it. I guess I'll have to cozy up to PSP's html help. Ciao Jürgen Welz Edmonton, Alberta jwelz at hotmail.com >Hi Jürgen and William > >Same experience here. You have to start with vector graphics which in real >life means redoing the artwork if it is in raster. I believe Photoshop and >other hi-level applications can vectorize a raster image but in many cases >- indeed if text and fonts are included - it is faster just to redo it. > >We use Micrografx Designer which still proves powerful; it is, however, not >available anymore. Paint Shop Pro is fine as well. Also, for another >low-cost alternative, Canvas is fine (from the ACDsee people). > >WMF files can hold both vector and raster images. > >/gustav > > >>> wdhindman at bellsouth.net 22-12-2005 01:51 >>> >...PSP X is well capable of doing everything you need Jurgen ...Corel just >bought out Jasc and have not managed to screw it up as yet ...I use it all >the time for just such tasks ...but not even Adobe Photo Shop or >Illustrator >will do what you want when you start with a raster version of the logo >...wmf is not a pure vector format and converted rasters rarely transform >successfully into vectorized wmfs in my experience ...I'd redo the logo >from >scratch in PSP as a vector image using PSP's native format rather than wmf >...then export it as a wmf ...actually the emf format is a much better >platform imnsho for native vector images and I much prefer it over wmf. > >...I had to do this for a client a few months ago and had both PSP and >Adobe >CS2 available...we had a 3rd party graphics shop redo the logo in PSP's >native format (.pspimage) and I retained that as the master ...PSP readily >exported it as a vector emf and it resizes in Access and Word just as it >should without any of the distortions native to resized raster images. > >...hth > >William