There must be an obvious answer...

What are the dimensions of the lettering?  Are they too small to make masks or too weirdly shaped to cut masks by hand?

My thinking is...

Scan and print to scale

Cut out masks using printout as guide 

Another way...

In photo editing program with a scan of the decal, most photediting can follow the outline of letters. Cut out the letters so that you have white where letters used to be in the same shape as the letters.

Change the background color surrounding the white letters to black or some other dark color so that when you print out on white decal paper it will only print the dark color with the white letters in the center of the printed area.  Now you can cut out the white letters and apply as normal.

Many graphics programs have an invert function.  This inverts or reverses the colors.  Say you have an image with black letters on a white background.  The invert function turns this into white lettering on black background.  Assuming the numbers are large enough, you can cut along the boundary.  Or, if numbers are to go over black painted area, use as is.  In fact you can match blacks pretty easy if the color is not pure black, by playing with brightness function, making very small changes- a percent or so at a time.

Some programs do have an outline function that finds edges and makes a black line on all edges, but you may not need that.

The answer is simple, You can't. 

Inkjet printers squirt out cyan magenta yellow and black ink. No white. https://www.thoughtco.com/can-i-print-the-color-white-1074606

I work in the graphic design industry and there is no simple way to print white. 

1.) Silk screen printing is a good way to print white.

Speedball makes a kit for $100 to make screen prints with photo emulsion. If you follow the instructions it is not as hard as you would think.

2.) Cutting the letterforms out of some white matierial. you can trace them on a light table and use Vinyl, decal matireial etc. 

3.) purchase rub down letters, Chartpak still makes a variety of sizes https://www.chartpak.net/chartpak

4.) get a realy small brush and magnifying glasses 

if you find I simpler way I would love to hear it, This is the wholey grail of model making in my mind. Because you can't just hit the Print white on your printer. !!!

good luck and let me know if this is helpful or not

bartenational

The answer is simple, You can't. 

Inkjet printers squirt out cyan magenta yellow and black ink. No white. https://www.thoughtco.com/can-i-print-the-color-white-1074606

I work in the graphic design industry and there is no simple way to print white. 

1.) Silk screen printing is a good way to print white.

Speedball makes a kit for $100 to make screen prints with photo emulsion. If you follow the instructions it is not as hard as you would think.

2.) Cutting the letterforms out of some white matierial. you can trace them on a light table and use Vinyl, decal matireial etc. 

3.) purchase rub down letters, Chartpak still makes a variety of sizes https://www.chartpak.net/chartpak

4.) get a realy small brush and magnifying glasses 

if you find I simpler way I would love to hear it, This is the wholey grail of model making in my mind. Because you can't just hit the Print white on your printer. !!!

 

good luck and let me know if this is helpful or not

 

 

I know that white can't be printed with a laser or inkjet printer, except for a small number of expensive machines. But I do print decals on both white and clear film using an inkjet with CMYK cartridges.

The background for my numerals is a RN 507 B Mid-gray. I could probably outline the numerals using a match, but unlike say black, it just isn't going to look that good.

(1) is a good idea, better in multiples.

(2) may be what I do, using white decal sheet. I've done that before by printing a symetrical image like a star on the back. Maybe I can print the type backwards on the back.

(3) can't get the right typeface.

(4) closer to my current thinking. The ship is fairly weathered, so painting the numerals using masks may be what I try.

Thanks everyone for the input.

Bill

cool, love to see it when you are happy with it! 

peace out

oh and one more thing,

I saw where someone had painted white on blank clear decal paper, then transfer it to the model. 

that would be easier than trying to paint directly on a cureved surface , plus you could use a light table to trace over.. ... just a thought..  good luck 

I did something similar just recently.  Needed white lettering that would be applied to a OD green background.  Using Windows paint I created an OD green box not much bigger then the white lettering.  I placed the white letters inside the OD box.  Printed this on white decal paper.  When I cut out an applied the OD box with the lettering, the OD was a close match to the OD painted surface.  I then took the same OD paint used to paint the surface and thinned it to 50/50 thinner to paint.

With some magnification and a fine brush I was able to blend in the OD on the decal into the painted surface with the thinned paint.  The difference in colors virtually vanished.  When i clear coated over the decals it was almost impossible to see where the two colors blended into each other.  It looked more like weathering then anything else.

In the pictures below, the bomb crates where it says US army are the decals I created using this technique.  Once the crates were weathered with a wash, it all blended in:

Looks great!

GMorrison

 

 

bartenational

The answer is simple, You can't. 

Inkjet printers squirt out cyan magenta yellow and black ink. No white. https://www.thoughtco.com/can-i-print-the-color-white-1074606

I work in the graphic design industry and there is no simple way to print white. 

1.) Silk screen printing is a good way to print white.

Speedball makes a kit for $100 to make screen prints with photo emulsion. If you follow the instructions it is not as hard as you would think.

2.) Cutting the letterforms out of some white matierial. you can trace them on a light table and use Vinyl, decal matireial etc. 

3.) purchase rub down letters, Chartpak still makes a variety of sizes https://www.chartpak.net/chartpak

4.) get a realy small brush and magnifying glasses 

if you find I simpler way I would love to hear it, This is the wholey grail of model making in my mind. Because you can't just hit the Print white on your printer. !!!

 

good luck and let me know if this is helpful or not

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't explain myself i guess.

 

I know that white can't be printed with a laser or inkjet printer, except for a small number of expensive machines. But I do print decals on both white and clear film using an inkjet with CMYK cartridges.

The background for my numerals is a RN 507 B Mid-gray. I could probably outline the numerals using a match, but unlike say black, it just isn't going to look that good.

(1) is a good idea, better in multiples.

(2) may be what I do, using white decal sheet. I've done that before by printing a symetrical image like a star on the back. Maybe I can print the type backwards on the back.

(3) can't get the right typeface.

(4) closer to my current thinking. The ship is fairly weathered, so painting the numerals using masks may be what I try.

Thanks everyone for the input.

 

Bill

 

 

You didn't say what size the numbers are. If they are large enough to cut out with a good hobby knife, than if you match the background color reasonably well, then trim the background edge very close, that is often close enough.  The eye does not have nearly as good a spatial resolution for color differences as it does for brightness differences.  This is why the old analog color TV worked, even though the color processing was very low res compared to the brightness processing.

The numbers are 60" tall, about 13/32" at 1/144 scale. The stroke is light, about 1/16".

GMorrison

The numbers are 60" tall, about 13/32" at 1/144 scale. The stroke is light, about 1/16".

 

That might be big enough to cut out with a good hobby knife.  The height is certainly enough, though that is a bit on the narrow side.  I'd make up some on white paper with as close as you can match background.  I always make several copies of decals when I print out my decals. Do that, and try the cutting, and apply to a test piece painted with that background color.  Such experiments often pay off well.

 BTW, I use a scalpel for cutting decals- find it better than any X-acto blade I have found.

Following Dons suggestion, you will also get better cut if you cut on glass, not on a cutting mat.  The blades will dull faster but your cuts will be cleaner, escpecially around curves.

Here's how it ended up. I masked the K and the 4 using Tamiya 6mm tape, one stroke at a time.

I took the kit "6" decal and layed two of them down on 3M blue tape. They didn't adhere at all, so I put down a layer of Scotch Tape clear over them.

I cut a mask twice, and used it to stencil paint the two "9" s.

Good thing the ship is weathered.

Looks good, Greg.  Yeah, weathering does a nice job of making decals or painted numbers, letters and logo look better.