Yeah, you can do that.
sweet deal cause i have an awesome printer at home and can save some money
OK, supreme noob here! I have decided to go with Mamemarquees. I am modding a SE stick. 1.What file format do I save the art work in?
2. What are the exact dimensions for the SE template?
3. When selecting the CP size, which one do I go with?
4. On the “Template option” which one do I pick? “Don’T print full size template” or "Print full size template"
Sorry for all the questions, but it’s a lot off money to order from them and I don’t want to make any mistakes. TIA!!!
Random question since this thread’s been about printing out images and what not:
How would one go about printing out an image to something like 39 in. by 19 in.? Would Kinko’s be able to do that or is that something that needs to be done by another company?
Any help is appreciated.
Marcus
I’ve gotten art printed out and laminated at Staples.
It cost $4 total to do it.
The only problem is cutting laminated art. Whether you use an X-acto knife or utility knife, it’s a tremendous pain! Like other people have said, straight edges aren’t the problem – it’s curves and circles that are murder!
I got the art cut out by combination of drilling, slicing, and scissoring. I just roughly got the size of the buttons and the plastic was forced down when I installed my buttons. Unfortunately, my registration was a bit off and my art bulges up a bit in the middle. The next go-around (which I want to do since I shifted the buttons a little bit to correspond to the MadCatz TE layout which I like better than the stock T5) I plan on using Artist’s tape to flatten the art against the faceplate and use the plate as a guide for cutting from the back…
There is a problem with getting the laminated art to lie perfectly flat against the faceplate if you use that as a guide… The lamination makes it next to impossible for it to lie flat and still on its own. I’d use double sided tape with laminated art OR artist’s tape (white color, less acidic, less tacky than regular tape – available at good art stores) to secure the art if you don’t have it laminated.
I probably am not going to laminate my next bit of of art until after I get it cut first to fit the plate… or maybe not all. With a plexiglass cover, lamination probably isn’t really necessary unless you’re ultra-concerned about liquids or your ink running.
FYI, the art I have for faceplates isn’t anywhere near 300dpi and printed out fine on regular laser paper. It’s large wallpaper located on various websites. In most cases, it was large (14 X 12 or greater) to begin with so it looked fine when it was shrunk. It’s not so much the dpi that counts but the size of the art. Hopefully, it’s larger than the faceplate. DPI comes into play when it’s artwork that’s significantly less than the approximately 13 X 8 size of most deluxe joystick faceplates… I’m speaking of the HRAP-style cases and the MadCatz TE’s of course.
I’d recommend actually saving finished art with guides for buttons and faceplate screws as a PDF file. Staples’ computers resized my PSD file and printed it out at the wrong size. I double-checked on my computer and saw that it wasn’t me that had screwed up. The PDF file format opened up fine on their machines and printed out well. It was in CMYK mode, too. CMYK, not RGB, is standard printout format. RGB is the color standard for most monitors.
can someone plz post some pix of what you’ve done… im planning on making one for my mayflash stick…
So recently I have been working to mod my Mad Catz SE SFIV Fight stick, I went to get my art printed and they told me that the Lami-Label was only for the employees and not for customers, although they told me that they can simply laminae a sticker (basically the same thing). When they did print out my art it looked like garbage, the colors were very dark and they quality was blotchy and washed out. Does any one know where a better place do get this printed and/or have any advice.
Since there doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer within this thread, which of these processes is better?
- print image
- cut paper to the right size
- lami-label it
or
- print and lami-label image
- cut it to the right size
And if the first process is better, then for step 2, should the paper be cut exactly the size of the stick’s panel, or slightly smaller to allow for laminate to properly seal the edges?
I printed it out, lami-labeled it then I cut it out. I think it gives you more room to adjust if any problems were to arise.
Wow. Let me try to recap. Please correct me where I’m wrong.
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Never upscale original images for the template.
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Save it as a TIFF and bring it to Kinko’s or a pro printing shop.
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Print it on heavy matte paper and get it laminated.
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Cut out the holes, stick it in.
If I’m planning to cover the art in plexi, which is going to give me the best looking print. A Xerox Fiery Laser printer, or an ink based color printer.
What happened to this thread? Lol.
3 months ago people were posting on it like crazy and then no one cared about it anymore. I’m about to go to kinkos and try to print some stuff there, I guess I’ll let you guys know how it went and what I did when I get back.
PS: Likkuid you still haven’t posted those pics and it’s been like 5 months lmao.
EDIT: Ok so just got back from kinkos, and they printed out everything fine but the laminating machine wasn’t working out so well, so the lady printed it on a different kind of paper and just told me to put double sided tape on the back. I sure hope that works. Oh and the first time the lady was about to print so that she could laminate it but another worker said that Capcom is copyright and blah blah, so I just told them to take off the Capcom layer, but when she printed it again she forgot to take off the Capcom layer so everything turned out fine anyway xD…now I’m just waiting for my buttons to get here so I can put everything together.
The lanilabel I got printed at Kinkos looked terible, so i did:
http://www.colorfulimpressions.net/catalog/322497.jpg
You can’t really tell from the pics, but it came out pretty well.
Good stuff there PUKED.
…so I spent Sunday trying to get my stick art done.
Kinko’s pretty much sucked ass, they were nice but all of their glossy laserjet print jobs had roller marks/indentations. The girl was like “yeah, there’s nothing we can do about that” so I went with matte.
The laserjet matte quality is pretty lifeless and bland when compared to an inkjet printer, the detail and colors are just not there. Its clean however, I even used the CMYK 300dpi workspace and exported through photoshop both a PDF and TIF file. They both looked the same in the end. I wound up using it because I wanted to get something in there…
What I think I’m going to do is go to a real print shop and request 11X17 heavyweight inkjet glossy and let it dry for a week before I put it under the plexi, hopefully it won’t get sticky and bleed/stick to the plexi.
Anybody have issues with inkjet prints having problems with drying/moisture when up on the plexi?
Almost every photo I’ve printer on glossy inkjet and put in a frame will eventually have some black area sticking to the glass…even if I let it dry for a few days.
There’s no reason to print on gloss paper when you’re putting it under plexi. Especially when you’re printing via a laser copier.
I know, just wanted to see how the glossy laserjet looked…pretty crappy.
Without a doubt, the inkjet glossy looks 1000% better than the laserjet matte paper under plexi. My only concern is the glossy sticking to the plexi if it gets humid/doesn’t dry in time.
…perhaps its just that Kinkos sucks, I mean my HP P1100 inkjet at home prints better than their Xerox 7675 laserjet on matte or glossy stock.
ARRRGH!
:chainsaw:
I really like this thread. It helped me decide what I was going to do in the end to print out my artwork. I really liked PUKED’s idea of buying the sticker paper( http://forums.shoryuken.com/showpost.php?p=7462342&postcount=133), and then laminating it with the laminating sheets. I have a $65 printer from HP that prints borderless full page images and the quality is pretty decent! Problem was I went to office depot and found the equivalent of those products and they were pricey and I figure I was going to spend much more for something along the same price of just having mamemarquees print the art for me. Only the mamemarquees is better quality. The only thing about mame marquees is that you have to really want that art. I paid $32 including shipping and let me tell you! It is amazing! I got the package pretty fast even though I paid for the cheapest shipping.
When It asks what size to print I just left it blank. I got the size the whole photoshop file was. This probably only works with templates that include size and dpi. If you are making your own then I would probably specify what dimensions. I didn’t include the white border that the Madcatz template had (for the SE) and I am using clear buttons so I had included the buttons but made my own that are smaller in diameter. Do not use the circle cutouts that the templates have! They are exactly, if not even bigger, and if you have the art off by even a little, it will show on the edges when you install buttons! Even though I made my button designs smaller is was pretty close to the size of the holes and I had to be careful it matched with the holes on the metal plate.
When I received the art I thought it was scratched but it turns out that some adhesive from the cut edges got on the surface of the art while it was rolled up. A little dab and rubbing with some WD-40 and a soft paper towel or cloth takes it right off. It shines nice! Its like a matte look but it shines.
I would like to start off by stating that im half decent with photoshop, but have never printed out something like this before. Warning i may say something pretty stupid in the following questions:
So i’ve been reading this thread (all 6 pages) and ive noticed people talking about how the TE stick comes with acrylic, but I havent read whether its mandatory or not. Is just having the art laminated enough? or are all of you putting acryllic on top? My dad says getting acrylic properly cut costs a small fortune and im kinda broke.
I dont have a kinkos around here and dont have any way to get to one. So is a staples print job sufficient? If so what are my best options?
I currently have the PSD file finished (pretty basic) and saved as the proper size. I saved it as PDF and tried a sample print on standard 8.5x11 paper and its the right size and looks good. i just need to get it printed now. any help is appreciated.
Do you know about arthong?
http://www.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=183523
Or is the cost of shipping to Canada too much?
Because his Custom Acrylic Panels are not small fortune.
And he does Print and Cut Service for art too.
A complete print for regular TE art doesn’t fit on 8.5" x 11" paper.
The smallest standard size paper is Legal.