Hi, This hobby is for me something of a christmas decoration, that I set up and store with the season, so I dont post much from Jan-Sept. When in effect I run a small 2'x4' board with 2 n-scale lines, an FEC rock train facsimilie, and a B&O Capitol Limited around a winter village/scene. My wife has been wanting, for quite some time, to do a version of the polar express in n scale, one of her favorite holiday movies. When it comes to the decals, she is considering getting an alphabet and doing it one letter at a time, but I'm worried about alignment. If we were to try inkjet printing, I saw many suggestions to print on white paper since the yellow/gold lettering wont show well on clear. To deal with the white background, some suggest printing the background to try and match the paint color. Has anyone experimented with painting the decal paper before printing with a light but even coat of the same paint used on the train (i use acrylic, I think). I figure you could airbrush, use fixative, print, fixative again, and maybe have perfect matched decals? Any thoughts? Thanks!
One problem will be that the inkjet printer (usually) uses a halftone pattern to create the particular shade of color. The halftone pattern is calculated assuming a white background. So for a simple example, a 50% grey is generated by printing only half of the dots in black, and letting the white show through. If the background color is not white, then the resulting apparent color to the eye will be wrong. A more drastic example... if you put a halftoned "light yellow" on a blue background, it will look green because the eye will blend the tiny yellow dots and the blue background showing through between the dots. So to get the printed color right, you have to either truly have white behind the color, or you have to (somehow) adjust the halftoning process to account for the exact color of the actual background.
Excellent point. Thank you. Perhaps it is possible, through trial, to alter the color chosen on the PC for the lettering to adjust for the background bleedthrough to get the desired color on the decal. This seems plausible since this is a simple one color letter on background deal, not a complex image or logo.
for these decals, I painted a plain white sheet of paper with the same color as the locos, scaned that sample into the computer, added my lettering, and printed onto white decal paper.
Sounds like a neat solution to the problem - IF your printer cooperates and prints that color the same shade. Definitely woth a try though.
I did a trial tonight, painting a corner of plain printer paper and scanning the color in. Either my scanner stinks, or the printer ink is iffy, but the match wasnt good. Will mess with it some more tomorrow.
make sure any auto color correct is off, on scanner, printer, and whatever program you're using to create with. also set printer to draft setting. I use a HP all in one, and create decals in microsoft picture it. photo shop type programs are far more color friendly then word processer types are
Just thinking out loud for a moment, but I'm wondering if you maybe paint half of the page the color you're trying to match, and leave the other half just plain white, maybe add a black box in the middle of it, so you can perform some proper color correction (white and black balance using the image levels control). Maybe that will help at least get the correct color into the system. Then take a minute and run a calibration on your printer, just to make sure it's printing the way it ought to.
I would take the the car or loco to be decaled and put that directly on the bed of the scanner, and then push the button. The scanner will then pick up the color directly from target model. It will have slight variations from pixel to pixel, which will enhance the look once it gets where it's going.
boy, having a heck of a time getting a match, and my printer is putting lines in the color. I tried cleaning and troubleshooting all night. Got nowhere, just a wasted $8 sheet of decal paper. Anyone know a professionao printer that will do small runs? The painting of the cars came out so well, I would hate to ruin it withbad decals, or tryimg and failing tp align letter by letter.
I would put the artwork on a CD or flash drive and take it to a copy place like Kinkos. Staples has a copy center, too. They probably use laser printers, so you would need to get yourself a package of laser paper. (Inkjet and laser decal paper are not interchangeable at all.) I would take the model with me, and work with them. My guess is, they will be really interested in the whole thing. When I make decals, I set very small margins so that I start printing at the very top of the page, and fill it left-to-right as much as possible. I may only print an inch or two. Then I cut the paper just below the printed decals on a flatbed paper cutter, so I get a nice clean edge. With that, I can put the paper back into the printer and repeat the process quite a few times. With practice, you can even cut a piece of regular paper and tape it to the bottom of the short decal sheet to get that last few inches to feed through your pirnter.
thanks for the advice. Before I go spending any more money, I am getting a quote from elstrains.com and layoutsbysteve.com. This is such a simple, letters/numbers printing that I am hoping they can give me a decent price, and both sites claim they will do single sheet orders. Heck, I have already spend over $35 on paper and new printer ink, going this route might have saved me money and time in the first place.
Let us know how this turns out. If somebody could make single sheets of custom white lettering for a good price, I'm sure there would be a market.
Well, I played with my inkjet some more, and managed to get the print quality better, but between pixelation and color matching, it just doesnt look good enough. Not to mention the edges of the white paper can be seen around the decal. I'm either going to go with a professional printer, or try to line it up letter by letter with a microscale alphabet sheet. Still waiting on quotes from the printers. Very frustrated...
Model Railroading has made me a more patient person. While I usually like to complete a project once I've started it, delays are easier for me to tolerate now. If I can't decal, I can always ballast, or put together a Jordan vehicle kit from my "to be built" shelf. When one project is delayed, another is advanced.
I get that. Unfortunately this is a seasonal project only.....if not done by mid Nov., it will likely wait till next year. Still no word on custom prints. My wife is insistent that she has the perfectionist attitude and patience to do it letter by letter and make it not look like a serial killer ransom note. At this point I am going to let her try that route for now, and if it doesn't work we will have to come up with something else. Thanks for all the advice so far!
