Decal fuzzy after reduced in size

greghile

 

 

JMorgan

I use, I’m sorry to say, a $40 Canon Pixma 250 inkjet from Walmart to do my printing.

 

 

 

I don't think the printer is your problem. What the others have said is most likely the best course of action.

 

I agree.  At one time my main printer used inks that were very soluble in any kind of overcoat, so I could not use it for decals.  I bought a forty buck printer just for decals- it worked fine.  My new Epson printer that I use for my good printing has very good ink, so that forty buck printer ended up eventually in my computer junk file. 

JMorgan

I use, I’m sorry to say, a $40 Canon Pixma 250 inkjet from Walmart to do my printing.

Cheap printers can do just fine for decals. My HP is about the same price-range, and it does really well.

The key is whether the catridge/ink combination is one that does well with decal paper. Some just don't; it doesn't seem to be related to mfg. or printer model, but just an accident of chemistry in whatever ink formula the cartridge uses.

JMorgan

I use, I’m sorry to say, a $40 Canon Pixma 250 inkjet from Walmart to do my printing.

I don't think the printer is your problem. What the others have said is most likely the best course of action.

I use, I’m sorry to say, a $40 Canon Pixma 250 inkjet from Walmart to do my printing.

I have found when printing decals that I need to always use the highest density settings to get any acceptable results.

Indeed, how you handle the pixel pitch during resizing is critical.  Some graphics programs default to using the same pixel pitch (the number of pixels per inch) setting.  Do not do it that way.  Instead, say you are reducing size to 50% (cutting drawing size in half).  You must then set the pixels per inch to double what the original was.

For instance, if the original artwork was 300 pixels per inch, and you want a 50% reduction, you must set the ppi to 600.  That will give you the same resolution as before. If you keep the 300 ppi you will get only half the resolution of the original.

BTW, some graphics programs refer to pixel pitch as dpi.  This is an incorrect unit, a holdover from the old halftone screening process. Inkjet printers actually use many microscopic dots to print each pixel.

I think Pawel is on the right track.

You didn't indicate how you reduced your image size, but it sounds like there was pixel loss. When I"ve tried reducing sizes mathematically---or by a percentage, in a graphics program---I've had that same problem.

My solution was to paste the full-size image into an ordinary document in the program I use to print my decals---in my case, 'Open Office'---and then 'drag' the image borders to the desired 'actual decal' size, being careful to keep the original aspect ratio. I've managed to produce clear/readable data plates as small as 1/8 inch, with no real fuzziness or image artifacts...but a lot depends on printer and inks, as well.

Good luck!

Hello!

While having an example would help say something more definite, I can risk a theory. It might be that you are mistakenly reducing the size in picture in pixels - like going from an image that is, say 1000x1000 px to 10x10 px - then the software is resampling the image and you lose information. What you want to do is going froma an image that is like 200mm x 200mm to an image that is say 5mmx5mm while keeping all the pixels of the original image, just making them all smaller. Other way to say it would be to increase the resolution (dpi) without resampling the image. Try other options in your software, I suppose if you hit the right one it can be done. Hope it helps and have a nice day

Paweł