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Have a question for all of you artisticly inclined and technologically proficient poker addicts out there. Like many others in this forum I'm working on custom chip labels and am well along in the process but encountering one problem.

My basic design is a 1.1 in square image created in Photoshop and then pasted into Illustrator. In Illustrator I have three invisible circles centered in the image and use the Fit Text to Path capability to fit three lines of text to the three circles. My plan is to then replicate these individual single-chip images onto a template that will print on the multi-label sheets I will be using. I am using an HP color inkjet printer that I have available and Avery removable labels that come 20/sheet on small (about 5 x 7) sheets to do my mock up work. I've ordered (and received very quickly) the 1 in permanent weatherproof labels from OnlineLabels.com for use in the final product and will be using a color printer at Kinkos that can print directly from Illustrator files.

Here's my problem: While my labels look fine on the screen, when I print them out the circular text on two of the rings 'peaks' at the top of the arc. That is, the nice circular appearance on the screen looks as if the sides of the rings (with the associated text) were slightly pinched in. The effect is only slight but it is noticable and I've spent enough time and money on this that I don't want to accept substandard output. Again, the on screen appearance is excellent at any level of zooming.

Here's some more info. The three rings used in my fit text to path layout do not themselves print. Two of the rings have 7.5 pt Arial Black font in two lines, one inside the other, that print at the 'top' of the chip. (Arial Black is a font name. The actual text is color coded to match the chip colors on each chip.) These are the two lines that are exhibiting the problem. The third ring/text combination is 6 pt Arial Black with the text at the 'bottom' of the chip and has no problem. Can't remember if my version of Illustrator is 9 or 10 but it is the version just prior to the current (CE, I think) version.

I'm looking for insights on this. It may be, for example, that the problem is specific to my printer and will go away when printed on a color laser copier (basically a printer). It may be that the problem is caused by the larger font size. I will experiment later tonight with the 6 pt size which will be acceptable if it makes this problem go away.

I do a lot of technical debugging in my job and realize that there may be information I've omitted. I'll watch this forum and try to reply directly if you need more insights.

BTW: I'm doing this myself as I just like to beat problems like this into submission on my own and also because I want five different images for five different chip colors. Like KY70, I'm using text colors that go with my edge spots and I've also selected my images both to establish a theme and to have colors that go with the chip each is on. I thought this job would be kind of expensive to hire out. To be honest, though, because of reason #1 I didn't even ask any of the highly recommended vendors. I'm using RPT NexGens and the images are Coastal Florida. Chip text is:

Line 1 (top outside): Larry's Banana River
Line 2 (top inside): Card Room
Line 3 (bottom) Satellite Beach, Florida

Thanks to all who have contributed to this project so far. Much good information from PocketRocket and others.

Larry

You should post a pic, hard to say what the problem is without seeing it.

But actually it's more likely that there is no problem really and you just have to do some more tweaking. The computer does what it does, and perfectly by it's point of view LOL, whether it "looks" right is up to the artist and their job.

Getting text right can be tricky. You might have to size and space every letter individually to get it to look right. You might have to squash the circle to get the text to look like it's following a round path LOL. Actually unless your text goes all or most of the way around the circle, I'd suggest using a Bezier curve rather than a circle for a path, you'll have a lot more flexibility as to what the text can do.

Also, definitely run down to Kinko's and see how it looks with the printer you intend to use. Almost missed the part about the printer LOL, of course it could be a printer problem.

Good luck, post a pic if you can.

Hi Larry:

It sounds like you might need to experiment with the "warp text" features of Photoshop before you transfer to illustrator. Try the "arc" and "arch" selections found within warp text of Photoshop. Each font style creates different sized arches, so this is a very time consuming process. Once you get that far, then adjust the sliding scale switch of the "bend", "horizontal distortion" and "vertical distortion" features. This could solve your problem after some trial and error.

Here are two images. One of all the chips and one of a single chip up close. Maybe it's all in my mind. Clarity suffers a little as I wanted to keep image sizes small for downloads. Also have just a little bit of work to do to center the text on the circular label on some but will wait until I'm ready to go to the final printer as there can be variation in label sheet feeding, etc.

All Chips


One Chip Close Up


Thanks.

Larry

Looks pretty good for DIY to me... I see some centering issues, as you note. (Is this from the HP? Again, definitely run down to Kinko's for a test page or two.) Also you seem to have some different size circles going? Like between the yellow and black chips? I'd pick one. I kinda like the yellow one and how it's off center towards the bottom of the design, dunno if you did that intentionally but to me it helps define up and down for the design in a subtle and interesting way.

Another thing that might help is I'd rotate the "Card Room" text or to put it another way, start the text a little farther to the right along the circle. It's hard to tell since each chip is at a different angle but it looks to me like you've got the R in Room right at the top of the arc which is a little out of balance to me. Your call though. Hell, I might even cheat that R a tiny little bit... it's a big letter in an attention-grabbing space, kinda gives you a "card Room" effect LOL. But rotating it a bit might take care of that too.

Looks good, keep it up.

Iron Butt wrote:Looks pretty good for DIY to me... I see some centering issues, as you note. (Is this from the HP? Again, definitely run down to Kinko's for a test page or two.) Also you seem to have some different size circles going? Like between the yellow and black chips? I'd pick one. I kinda like the yellow one and how it's off center towards the bottom of the design, dunno if you did that intentionally but to me it helps define up and down for the design in a subtle and interesting way.

Another thing that might help is I'd rotate the "Card Room" text or to put it another way, start the text a little farther to the right along the circle. It's hard to tell since each chip is at a different angle but it looks to me like you've got the R in Room right at the top of the arc which is a little out of balance to me. Your call though. Hell, I might even cheat that R a tiny little bit... it's a big letter in an attention-grabbing space, kinda gives you a "card Room" effect LOL. But rotating it a bit might take care of that too.

Looks good, keep it up.

I agree with Iron, but other than that looks great

Have been putzing around with the label designs and still no progress. I have determined that the pinched effect I first reported only applies to the inner circle text, with 'Card Room' on it in the photos. If I open the image in Illustrator and zoom in a bit it is clearly there in the image. The two outer rings of text look fine both on screen and in print. I think that I'm just trying to get too much text around too tight an arc and Illustrator doesn't handle it. Tried reducing the font size but to no avail unless I get down to 4 pt which is too small to be useful.

I've tried a lot of manipulation and just don't see how I'm going to be able to keep three different lines of text as in the current drafts. I'm now trying to think of a clever way to say exactly what I want in two lines.

I didn't have this info available on the original posts but I am using Illustrator 9.01 and Photoshop 6.0.

The centering issue is a function of the layout of the master sheet that prints multiple labels per sheet. I'm not spending a lot of time on this as it will completely change when I am ready to go final. I think that the different size circles reported are also attributable to centering, but they do look to be different, don't they. Checking in the program itself shows all the text circles to be the same size.

Thanks to all who have responded.

Do be aware that you may encounter some shifting in printing just due to the inherent play in laser printers that will not occur with printing presses. That's why you want to allow for the bleed and should place your text accordingly.

lwestatbus wrote:Have been putzing around with the label designs and still no progress. I have determined that the pinched effect I first reported only applies to the inner circle text, with 'Card Room' on it in the photos. If I open the image in Illustrator and zoom in a bit it is clearly there in the image. The two outer rings of text look fine both on screen and in print. I think that I'm just trying to get too much text around too tight an arc and Illustrator doesn't handle it. Tried reducing the font size but to no avail unless I get down to 4 pt which is too small to be useful.

I've tried a lot of manipulation and just don't see how I'm going to be able to keep three different lines of text as in the current drafts. I'm now trying to think of a clever way to say exactly what I want in two lines.

I didn't have this info available on the original posts but I am using Illustrator 9.01 and Photoshop 6.0.

The centering issue is a function of the layout of the master sheet that prints multiple labels per sheet. I'm not spending a lot of time on this as it will completely change when I am ready to go final. I think that the different size circles reported are also attributable to centering, but they do look to be different, don't they. Checking in the program itself shows all the text circles to be the same size.

Thanks to all who have responded.

I've posted an update to the problem originally presented in this thread. Thanks to all who answered here. You may now want to look at the revised design at http://www.texasholdem-poker.com/forum/t11708/rpt-label-designs-round-2-opinions-please.

Thanks.

Larry