multi tile pictures

[John W. Love]

Hey all,

I know I saw a tutorial on here a while back on how to make multi tile pictures...but I've searched and can't find it. I have designed a 12" x 12" memorial but I want to enlarge it to 24" x 24" and engrave it on 4 absolute black granite tiles. I scanned the original picture at high enough dpi that I can enlarge it with no problem, but I've never made a multi tile mural except for the lion that the files were sent to me ready to go so I'm not sure how to do this. John says I should divide the tile into 4 pieces and then enlarge them...I think it would be better to enlarge first and then divide. Does anyone have a clue where I can find the tutorial or have any tips / tricks that would help us get this done? I certainly don't want to waste a lot of granite with my learning curve lol :D Any help would be appreciated enormously!

Thanks,

~Alicia

[Dale Davies]

hi john.."Alexis Galvez" on YOUTUBE has what you need. He has lots of tutorials using cdx3 and cdx4. Good luck

[John W. Love]

Thanks for the suggestion, however, when I go to YouTube and search Alexis Galvez I get 7 results, none of which are how to make a multi tile mural.

[Dale Davies]

that's pretty weird...he's got about 100 of them on there

[James Jaragosky]

Thanks for the suggestion, however, when I go to YouTube and search Alexis Galvez I get 7 results, none of which are how to make a multi tile mural.
I believe that Onur cakir posted something regarding this process. their are others that have posted regarding this; but I am at a loss as to whom right now.

[Shaddy Dedmore]

Tom asked something similar a few days ago, i pointed him to this old post (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=14086), not that it helped :o but it's what I do for the simpler murals. If you don't want any space for grout, just make the main page 24x24 as opposed to 24.25x24.25

Shaddy

[Frank Corker]

You should be viewing posts on powerclipping.

Create a 12x12 square.
Make duplicate to the right using the transformation docker.
Make duplicate of the two below.
Group all four tiles.
Import your image.
Click on the image that is to go into the four (now grouped) tiles, from the top of the page choose 'EFFECTS/POWERCLIP/Place in container' and click on the group. Your image will now jump into the four grouped box.
Once the image is inside 'ungroup all' which will allow you to move the tiles around but leave the image safely inside and you can laser each tile seperately.

[Tim Bateson]

Wow Frank - that was too easy! Thanks

[John W. Love]

Awesome, Thanks guys!
Frank, that was what I had seen, I just couldn't remember where I saw it! As always you save us a gillion hours of research by pointing us in the right direction.

[Dave Johnson29]

Frank, that was what I had seen, I just couldn't remember where I saw it!

John,

Don't forget to remove the border before laser-ing otherwise it will vector a square as well.

[John W. Love]

Ok, so I did this like Frank suggested...all looks good on my screen. However, when I send it to the laser...first tile looks great...second tile the text at the top comes out right but the picture underneath is engraving the same as on the first tile. John says he thinks he remembers something about each tile needing to be on a separate page but I can't seem to get them to move from one page to another. Would that be the problem and if so how do I fix it? If anyone knows how to correct this please let me know...and Thanks in advance!

~Alicia

[Steve Clarkson]

Alicia,

Not sure about a new "page", but I know how to make new "layers" in Corel.

Just go to your Object Manager, at the bottom of the docker should be an icon for "New Layer". Click it, rename it, and then drag one tile onto it. Continue adding layers as you need.

Another idea may be to try a whole new document. With your document open with the tiles, open a new blank document. Once they are both open, click on Window|Tile Horizontally. You should be able to see both documents, so now just drag one tile (or duplicate it first, then drag the duplicate) onto the new blank document......and it will be the only thing there, so it should print OK.

Hope that helps.

[John W. Love]

I originally had put each tile on its own layer and had every other layer unprintable when I ran the job. Then I tried copying the tile and moving it to a whole new file and it still didn't work. The only thing I can figure now is maybe I have to powerclip and then run each tile through photograv? When I originally did it I made a layout page (I always do this so I can see what my finished product should look like, well except for difference between the actual photo and the engraved photo). So for the layer that I was using to make the printable layers from I selected the photo on the layout page and then resized the photo in photopaint to that size. Then I ran the photo thru photograv and imported it to my print layer. Once I had it there I centered it and then made the exterior rectangle invisible by selecting no fill, no outline and grouped text, photo, and rectangle. Then I made the squares as Frank described and powerclipped. It looked like it worked fine...until I tried to print the second tile. John says that he thinks I need to powerclip first and then run through photograv...does anyone know if this is right?

Thanks,

~Alicia

[onur cakir]

Hi everyone !

here's my post, like Frank's method;

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=108842

[John W. Love]

Thanks all for all the suggestions! Just in case anyone else is wondering how to make this work...I think it was a problem with the image being cut after it had run through Photograv. I knew that you can't change the size of an image after running it through, but I didn't know that cutting the image would also cause problems...at least I think that's what caused it.

Here's how I fixed the problem. I made the 4 squares again as Frank had directed and grouped them. Then I took the text part of the tile only and powerclipped it in to the 4 squares. Separated the squares and I had the text part done. I decided it would be easier to make this a 2 pass process, one for text, and one for the picture. Then I remade the 4 squares and took the picture part of the tile and powerclipped it. Then I copied each of the four squares to a new file. I opened them in photopaint and added a background and saved as bmp. Then I ran each one through Photograv separately. Then imported the "engraved image" from photograv back into Coreldraw. I'm 3/4 of the way done now, and this is working wonderfully. A bit of a pain, but it's accomplishing what I needed and I'm almost done with the project which is really good because the customer wants it tomorrow.

Of course, it's probably my own fault that I ran into problems with this because I so gleefully pointed out to John last night how totally easy it was to do when I simply followed Frank's excellent directions. Jinxed it!

Anyway, thanks all for the help! And if anyone knows a simpler way to do what I did I'd love to hear it for the next time...I'm assuming that I'll need to do this again.

~Alicia

[Anthony Welch]

I do the same as Frank does. But tried engraving the whole lot at one time on my table and some tiles did not engrave well at all. So what I've learned to do is once powerclipped, Ungroup the tiles, copy one. Go to another page, register in the upper left and engrave. I do this for each tile.

This does better and the image is predictable on each tile. Now if I were having to mass produce these, I'd try and find out why the tiles are engraving differently, but for now this works for me

Anthony