We like to paint our names on the wall

[venta]

I've spent a few minutes trying to knock out some logos to go on t-shirts for Mabel. It's not gone entirely to plan.

I had stolen, from somewhere online, the following picture of a sword lock:



Now, that's a little small to go on a t-shirt. But it's also not a very high quality image, so blowing it up makes it rather fuzzy. However, the GIMP appears to have options like "smart sharpen". OK, that looks like a good plan - sharpen the edges up, it'll be fine.

The result:



What on earth's happened there ? It looks knitted.

However, I'd also found that the GIMP has an option for "smart enlarge", so perhaps I can start again from the little lock.



Well, that's hardly any better, is it ?

Does anyone know what these functions are meant to do ? They clearly don't do what I was expecting of them.

Also, can anyone give me idiot-proof instructions on how to bend text ? I want to write something round the lock, but have no idea how to go about it. I'm at work, so I only have the GIMP (and don't want to spend time downloading other stuff, even if it's free) - though if people can offer very idiot-proof instructions I can try Paintshop/Photoshop when I get home. Graphics software and I don't really get on. Really.

And... I tried, I really did. I mocked up some designs using various fonts. And what does it look like the majority vote is in favour of ? Comic Sans. I ask you.

People will no doubt be pleased to note that the overall effect of yesterday's playlist experiment was to remind me that there are a few albums I haven't listened to enough, or haven't listened to in a while. So today, I've listened to Envy of Angels, by the Mutton Birds, Lost Horizons by Lemon Jelly and am currently listening to Head Music by Suede. I found the Suede album cheap in a bargain bucket somewhere and have since been recommended against it, since it belongs to Suede's crap (ie post Butler-departure) era.

Comments

[wimble.livejournal.com]

That second attempt reminds me of a set of interlocking Spongs.

And I'm now getting quite worried, because I don't seem to be able to find any useful online references to Spongs (either I'm finding misspellings of Sponge, or I'm finding it used as an exclamation.)

[fluffymark]

Obviously it knows something you don't.

Rapper Knitting.

It's the next big thing, you know. ;)

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

The various sharpens etc are probably keyed for photographic images - I suspect that with the small size of your source, the 'smart' procedures don't have enough information.

I don't use GIMP - more of a tattyshop monkey, but I can offer a few words of advice.

First up, I suspect your resolution is off. You should be looking at a relatively enormous file - printers usually run upwards of 300 dpi - that's 300 pixels to the inch, so you should be creating an image several thousand pixels up & down.

Secondly, again about resolution, make your image as big as you possibly can, muck about with it (e.g. tidy up edges etc) and then at the last possible step, reduce it to the correct size. There's very few artifacts introduced by shrinking (specifically, moire patterns, but you don't seem to have any close grids in that image) whereas a ton of problems arise from making things larger.

Personally, if that is the image you've got as a source, I'd be aiming to turn it into a very large black & white image with clean lines. I'd try vectorising it, cleaning the bezier curves up by hand and rendering it out at a very high resolution - but that's quite technical and may be limited to Photoshop.

Finally, if bitmappery is your only option, then I'd spend your efforts creating one nice high resolution version of a single sword, spending time on the ends. Once that's done, blow up your graphic to a big size and then arrange copies of your high-res sword in the correct places, using cut-n-paste to do the overlappy bits.

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

It's the curse of the Blair Witch infecting your computer. Hope it hasn't spread to mine.

[failmaster.livejournal.com]

Post me a copy of the image and I'll turn my leet GIMP-fu skillz on it if you like.

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

> I found the Suede album cheap in a bargain bucket somewhere and have since been recommended against it, since it belongs to Suede's crap (ie post Butler-departure) era

I would agree that Head Music is Suede's weakest album, but not that Suede became crap the moment Butler left: Coming Up (also post-Butler) was a superb album IMO.

No record collection should be without Coming Up and Dog Man Star. The others are a bonus!

[timsmith.livejournal.com]

i may be wrong but often in times of peace swords were cerimonialy wraped in all sorts of materials varying from base metals to gold. the moor elobrate and expensive looking your wrap was the higher your status. the wrapping would start at the hilt of the sword and prevent it from being drawn. also this custom was observed by visiting nobles to show that they ment no harm. basicly it ment as a man you could have your big sword to swagger around with and not get yourself into any realy serious trouble.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

The correct way to do this would be to use Illustrator.

5-minute version here: rapper.ai

Adding curved text is trivial in Illustrator and the image can be produced at any size. The stick crossings need editing manually, but it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes at most.

(Your browser won't show it, but Photoshop will.)

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

A while back (probably 10 years) I looked at some software which somehow used fractals to enlarge images. It was far better than standard tools at the time and seems to exist still: search for "Genuine Fractals" (there's a plugin for Photoshop which can be tried out for free).

In this case, however, would it not be worth redrawing it, either on a PC or on paper and scanning?