Getting your work digitally printed
Posted on 26. Dec, 2009 by Andrew Price in Articles, Tutorials
Being that it’s Christmas, I decided to put my blender skills to the test by creating a Christmas card for my friends and family. It’s one of the first times I’ve gotten my work professionally printed, so it was all very new to me. The result wasn’t perfect but I learnt a few things that I thought I might share with you.
Learn from my experiences in the video below!
In the true spirit of Christmas, I’m also giving away the source file to my log cabin scene. Feel free to pull it apart and see how it was made!
In 2009, we’ve seen the biggest attendance on record for a Blender conference as well as the massive milestone release of version 2.5, so it has definately been a good year for Blender. A big thank you to the community and the developers for upkeeping the true spirit of open source. I can’t wait to see what 2010 brings.
14 Responses to “Getting your work digitally printed”
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Alejandro Soto
26. Dec, 2009
Merry Christmas, every time I see that Blenderguru.com has a new article, I know that is like Christmas !
Thanks for sharing the scene, and more important your experience in the printing.
Oscar
26. Dec, 2009
Gah, I hate printing frackin’ anything. Thanks for the project file!
false
27. Dec, 2009
love to see the video. and love your blog. i check back about every week so keep it up man.
Tobey
28. Dec, 2009
Nice work Andy, thanks for sharing your printing experiences on this vidcast, helps broaden the view of possible ways of using Blender to achieve impressive results off the screen. Too bad it didn’t work out the way you imagined but I believe your girlfriend must’ve appreciated the two weeks spent on it anyway. If not, then we do :-D
GJ man.
Reyn
29. Dec, 2009
Having worked in a printing company and a souvenir shop before, I remember just how a pain in the ass it is to calibrate and match as closely as possible the printed output to that of the image you see on the screen. There’s things you have to consider (to name a few), like: printer calibration, monitor calibration, color space, rgb to cmyk conversion, gamma correction, paper type, paper quality, etc.
Best advice I could give is to experiment (that comes with a lot of wasted paper and ink), and learn from those, or better, list them as templates. ^_^
-Reyn
Sven
29. Dec, 2009
The image looks very nice! I downloaded your file to find out how you did the heart-shaped fireworks, but I can’t find it in any layer… Where’d you hide it? ^^
Michael
29. Dec, 2009
If you’re trying to save money and want high quality, but aren’t particular on what you’re printing, then this is your workflow:
1) Check out the printing capabilities of the printer/printing press
2) Determine limitations of printer (utilizing customer feedback, online forums, etc)
3) Determine limitations of printing media
4) Design image with those in mind
If you have an image, don’t mind the cost, and want high quality, then:
1) Ascertain the proper media type/color (e.g. you could’ve gone with black card stock)
2) Determine which printer can print to it.
Final kickers to make professional cards:
1) Look into embossing your cards, in addition to learning to add creases so that the card can be folded. While a “Merry Christmas Chloe” embossing stamp would be expensive, an embossed border? Not so much.
2) Visit the arts and crafts section of your local department store. Painting in your embossed borders with metallic paint or reflective ribbon could go a long way.
SAverio
30. Dec, 2009
Thanks for the idea…
i newer considered before to make a postcard in blender…
Maxwell
30. Dec, 2009
Damn Andrew. You’re pretty cute. I’d do you. Or let you do me.
If you ever consider batting for the other team, let me know ;)
Fredy Martins
31. Dec, 2009
Well, I found an interesting trick to solve printing open source´s softwares outputs. For example, I took some colorful illustrations from Inkscape in JPG (high quality) and PNG formats. Went to a print shop and the results gone pretty bad. The colors changed a lot.
But when I exported to PDF, it seems to keep the characteristics of my digital files (including the colors and transparencies) pretty well. Did that to a 64 pages magazines too, on couché paper, printed digitally and the same thing happened. It´s far from being the final solution, but, it works pretty well.
waystar
05. Jan, 2010
Thanks for sharing the process, Andrew. Great to see what worked, what didn’t, and why.
Happy New Year to you!
william
09. Jan, 2010
I made a video game for christmas for my siblings
todd McIntosh
17. May, 2010
I would like to win the copy of The Wow Factor because I:
(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.· NEED IT! ·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)
(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.· WANT IT! ·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)
(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.· GOT TO, ·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)
(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.· GOT TO, ·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)
(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.·(¯`·._.· HAVE IT! ·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)·._.·´¯)
____ ______ ______ _____ ______
| \ | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| / | | | | | | |
—— | | ______ |______ |_____ |______ |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
| ______ | ______ | | _____| |______ *
Thank you, that is all.
Todd McIntosh
daffy duck
27. May, 2010
Great idea, definitely make sure to save the file in a lossless compression, with as large a resolution as possible. Converting to the color type of the printing, usually cmyk is a good idea too, and check them out in PS/Gimp etc. to see if the color looks the same. Great tut’s keep them coming!! :)