1/32 scale decals enlarged to 1/18 scale?
1/32 scale decals enlarged to 1/18 scale?
Has anyone ever had any success in enlarging 1/32 scale decals to 1/18? I read some topics referring to that and it appears to be more trouble than it's worth. One of the topics I read said the enlarging of the decal degrades the quality. Can anyone enlightening me.
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Black Lion VF-213
- Officer - 2nd Lieutenant
- Posts: 403
- Joined: Sun Jan 21, 2007 7:06 pm
- Location: Charleston, SC
Re: 1/32 scale decals enlarged to 1/18 scale?
It depends on how you enlarge the decals determines the quality, etc. i'm assuming you are scanning the decal while on a normal home printer/scanner, etc. Once scanned and if a simple enlargement is done then yes, the quality is not acceptable.
The scan would have to be cleaned up and then vectored. Which means in the scan there will be thousands of thousands of pixels. There will be color variations in the pixels, even in black. Therefore when you enlarge the image, the variations in color get nasty looking.
Programs like Adobe Illustrator (the highest end of vectoring programs and subsequently very expensive), or Corel Draw X4 or X5 (next best vectoring) are usable for cleaning and then vectoring. Inkscape is supposedly free. Have never used it before. However they're not the friendliest for cleaning if you're a beginner.
If you've never cleaned an image, then the best programs for cleaning is Snag It. Techsmith is the program that licenses it. It captures images on your screen much like a "print screen" but you can crop the image on the screen and omit the rest of the space before saving it. Snag It has a feature in its editing tool box called histo-contrast. It equalizes the variations in the pixels and does a great job of cleaning the image. You will have to do a little clean tweaking afterward and perhaps some color substitution. After that vectoring comes out looking great
The scan would have to be cleaned up and then vectored. Which means in the scan there will be thousands of thousands of pixels. There will be color variations in the pixels, even in black. Therefore when you enlarge the image, the variations in color get nasty looking.
Programs like Adobe Illustrator (the highest end of vectoring programs and subsequently very expensive), or Corel Draw X4 or X5 (next best vectoring) are usable for cleaning and then vectoring. Inkscape is supposedly free. Have never used it before. However they're not the friendliest for cleaning if you're a beginner.
If you've never cleaned an image, then the best programs for cleaning is Snag It. Techsmith is the program that licenses it. It captures images on your screen much like a "print screen" but you can crop the image on the screen and omit the rest of the space before saving it. Snag It has a feature in its editing tool box called histo-contrast. It equalizes the variations in the pixels and does a great job of cleaning the image. You will have to do a little clean tweaking afterward and perhaps some color substitution. After that vectoring comes out looking great
Re: 1/32 scale decals enlarged to 1/18 scale?
Black Lion VF-213, I appreciate your input and will give it a try. I wanted to enlarge a few of the 1/32 decals I have for some repaints I am planning in the future. I will let you know how it turns out. Thanks again.
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normandy
- Officer - Brigadier General
- Posts: 6028
- Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 6:30 pm
- Location: Atlantic Coast
Re: 1/32 scale decals enlarged to 1/18 scale?
rschaap, Have you seen Flyboys post?
http://www.warbird-photos.com/gpxd/view ... =9&t=28001
....or you can try masking off the existing Balkenkreuz, Star or Rondel and then repaint.
http://www.warbird-photos.com/gpxd/view ... =9&t=28001
....or you can try masking off the existing Balkenkreuz, Star or Rondel and then repaint.