OK. I don't know how much use this is going to be, as I can't teach you how to use Photoshop in ten minutes. A lot of it will depend on the quality of the image you have, so if you have a bike you want decals for get a decent image. Either take one, or find something on the net but the resolution needs to be somewhat decent.
This is what you will need in order to create the decals.
1. A computer or laptop. Speed is not essential if you have time, but RAM is. Mostly because sometimes you will be chucking around enormous images and that means RAM. You can always set up a large scratch disk in Photoshop, SSD preferably.
2. Photoshop. I personally use a *cough* portable version of this. Meaning you don't even have to install it.
3. Adobe Illustrator. Again, there should be some cough syrup available for your ailment. Illustrator is not essential, but will give you vector images to throw around which means no pixels no matter how large.
I will assume you have both of those. As I said, I cannot teach you how to use them because Photoshop is something I have been working with for 20 years and even I don't know half of it. I would say the hardest part is learning to use layers. This will catch you out at first. I will try and keep this simple, so you can at least follow the steps.
So in this instance I am going to be creating/etc images for my upcoming 2Hip Rootdown project. I want decals that look more like The Soul, so I shall be drawing those, but obviously anything you can find to make it easier will save you time. This is the image I found via google, which took me to the BMX Museum.
OK, step one, open it in Photoshop.
Now select the lasso tool in Photoshop (arrow) and draw roughly around the image, without going into the image. Don't worry about the stuff around the edges.
When you have the flashing cutout lines press CTRL J. This will take what you have drawn around and make it a new layer you can manipulate. It will look like nothing happened, so look bottom right and it should look like this -
OK. Now in that corner select the background layer. Just click on the layer under your decal layer.
Then select the square marquee tool, and select the entire background. Once done press CTRL X. You will see it vanish.
Your background will now be white. Now go from the background layer back to the decal layer by clicking on the layer the decal is in. I have put an arrow to that. Then once you have done that you need to select the rotate tool, as per the pic.
You can then grab the image and rotate it as straight as you can. Kinda like this. Then press enter to apply.
OK, so now you have the bottom line on the decal as straight as you can get it we need to sort out the shape of the decal, 'cause obviously she's a bit pissed. You need to use the Skew tool for that.
And you can now grab the corners and pull it around. You are aiming for something like this.
Once you are happy it's as straight as you want it again, press enter. This will apply it. Don't be afraid to do it again, and again and again until you get it straight.
Now the next trick is to try and get the colours as close to being "whole" as possible. The black part is *the only* critical part here. For this you want to add contrast so that the black becomes very deep. You will see why in a bit.
I used 90 to get the black to really pop.
Now that should be about as black as a coal bunker. This is good. OK, now you need the magic wand tool. Note, for this image I have used a tolerance of 80. The higher the tolerance the less accurate the magic wand will be, but too low and you will miss parts so again this is trial and error. Hence why the blacker the better. I have outlined each tool. If the wand is not there hold your left mouse on the tool in that area and a couple will pop up. Select the magic wand.
Right. Now what we want here is the black part. So click in the frame, for example. It will show a moving cut line. HOLD SHIFT. Now select each and every black area. DO NOT miss any. It will look like this when all selected.
Now press CTRL J. This will lift just the selection into a new layer. Again it will seem like nothing has happened, that is why you look down here in the bottom right.
It will now be lifted as a layer. Now, just in case that black is not perfectly black we need to put a colour overlay over it. Do that here.
This is what it will look like in the tool. Select the black in the very corner.
SAVE YOUR IMAGE as a BMP. So File-Save As. Make sure BMP is selected.
Now open Illustrator.
File - open
Select the image by clicking on it.
Now go to Object - Image Trace - Make. This will happen.
This is good, very good. Save your image as an EPS file (vector based).
Close Illustrator. Re open Photoshop. Go to file - Open. This will happen.
Now you can make this sucker as big as you want without a single pixel. Open it at the size you want for cleanup.
You can now cut out what you do not want (the leftovers etc) by using the lasso tool and CTRL X. Just make sure you are on the correct layer (the decal). If it is a little grey then add a colour overlay of the colour you desire (it does not have to be the stock black colour). To consolidate the colour layer go to the background and press SHIFT CTRL N. This will make a new invisible layer. Now select your colour overlaid layer and CTRL E. This will make it press into the invisible layer, finalising the colour.
Noting that layer 1 is the empty background (checkerboard) layer 2 is the empty layer you made and layer 3 w/colour overlay is your decal. CTRL E will push this down into one solid black (or whatever colour you chose) layer.
This is with the empty area coloured. To do this select the empty area with the magic wand tool and use the colour bucket to drop the yellow or pink or whatever you like in.
Now whilst it may look the same sort of thing as what you began with nuh uh. Watch what happens when we go to 100%. Remember, this sucker is half a metre wide atm lol
Had we tried to do that with the photo we began with it would be a blocky mess.
I may do another tutorial in this thread on how to get these into the correct size, and how to print etc. Obviously I understand it's a lot to take in. Any interest though and I will follow on with where we are now to decals coming out of the printer. Just holla !
Cheers.
