USAF Weapons School Patch

[Nathan Shaffer]

263375
Would any one happen to have this patch has a vector? I have been asked to make a marker case for a going away. Tried Corel X6 to trace it, but it does is rounding corners too bad for me to find acceptable for use. Any advise, help or guidance would be great!

Thank you for being willing to share your great knowledge.

Nathan Shaffer

[Scott Shepherd]

Draw it! I know that's not what you were looking for, but that's about 10 minutes of drawing in corel. I only mention it because I think many don't realize how easy it is to create things like this in corel. I'm sure I could do the shape in 5 minutes with the text taking another 5. This is a GREAT project to learn on. If anyone else is reading it, it's a great image to download and make your first try on because it's very basic.

[Darryl Hazen]

Hi Nathan,

Here's one for you to work with. You may have to tweak it a bit.

[Mike Null]

here it is with a bit more tweaking.

I agree with Steve--this is an easy one to do yourself.

[Ross Moshinsky]

First, there are a lot of people in the world that can trace this for sub $15 and have it back to you in 24 hours. Searching this forum or google will give you a lot of results.

Second, if I were to do this project, I'd trace it in Inkscape. Get the shape. Then retype the text in Illustrator (Inkscape does a poor job of text on a path). It may not be perfect, but it's typically more than good enough. If the customer can't supply good artwork, they can't be too picky if it's not exactly the same.

[Nathan Shaffer]

Gentlemen,
Thank you, for the files! Yes, the image is relatively simple. But I am just getting started, still learning, and this is a hobby on top of a full work week and family. So you all have given me back hours with the family. Thank you again!!:)

Mr. Moshinsky,
I can understand and appreciate the feedback about the customer not giving good artwork, then they should no be picky. But, the people who will purchase things with this Patch, are some of the very best Officers and Leaders in the US Air Force. Because of this I am holding the project to a higher standard of quality.

Thank all again,
Nathan

[Mike Null]

Besides that, my experience with service people is that they really don't have access to good art. About the best most can do is give you a patch or a jpeg. I've re-drawn a lot of military stuff for free over the years.

Nathan, for USAF art bookmark this:http://www.af.mil/art/index.asp

Also see if you can find a version 8 CorelDraw or even earlier as they had great clip art files.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Gentlemen,
Thank you, for the files! Yes, the image is relatively simple. But I am just getting started, still learning, and this is a hobby on top of a full work week and family. So you all have given me back hours with the family. Thank you again!!:)

Mr. Moshinsky,
I can understand and appreciate the feedback about the customer not giving good artwork, then they should no be picky. But, the people who will purchase things with this Patch, are some of the very best Officers and Leaders in the US Air Force. Because of this I am holding the project to a higher standard of quality.

Thank all again,
Nathan

We're not local to any military bases but I deal with an incredible amount of local police, fire, judges, correction officers, prosecutors, ect ect. The reality is, if they don't have good artwork, then most of their stuff (patches, shirts, ect ect ect) are all slightly different. Do a good job. Do the best job you can possibly do. The reality is, it won't be perfect because it's incredibly difficult to match a file perfectly, especially when it comes to text. The old adage "garbage in = garbage out" doesn't change simply because someone is in the military.

As long as the results are comparable to what they have and the quality of your product is nice, you're doing your job. In this industry, you can't drive yourself crazy over artwork if the customer doesn't give you something high quality to start with. It doesn't matter who the customer is.

[Nathan Shaffer]

Besides that, my experience with service people is that they really don't have access to good art. About the best most can do is give you a patch or a jpeg. I've re-drawn a lot of military stuff for free over the years.

Nathan, for USAF art bookmark this:http://www.af.mil/art/index.asp

Also see if you can find a version 8 CorelDraw or even earlier as they had great clip art files.

Mr. Null,
Your are very right that we do not have access to good quality images of our patches. One thing that I have been able to do at my current base is make friends with the Base Graphic Artist. She is willing to let me have the artwork has long as I am not making any money off it. Which is part of the reason I bought the machine is to do jobs for morale, going aways, name plates, etc. Most of my work has been a little over cost of the material. I have raided the AF.mil site numerous times to get images.

Also you indirectly answered a question that i have had. "How to find a mass of free clip art?" It is my understanding that X6 does not have near amount of files has previous versions.

V/R
Nathan

[Martin Boekers]

Nathan, do they have and engraving shop on base? (just checking the competion you may face :) )

This graphic was pretty good compared to most I have to deal with. If you have Photo Shop or Photo Paint you can do much of this
there quickly. Depending upon the size and substrate it may not have to be as good as you think to produce something nice.
If you plan on doing more work on base start to learn a variety of ways to get results quickly.

If you aren't using color or dealing with shades of grey, you really don't need a vector for this. Here is a version I did in PS that took about 20 seconds to do
using photo editing programs.

1 Open image, go to adjustments the to hue & saturation. There you can choose appropriate color channels and move the sliders about to get the effect
you want.

2 When you get the effect, convert to grey scale, then up the resolution to 300 or 600 dpi.

3 Now go to the adjustments, levels and work the the sliders to the best image.

On this I had to fiddle with compression and resolution to post, but the final version you save will be better quality.
You can tweek it a bit more if necassary, but this should be fine for most substrates.

I would start a folder for these type of graphics with notes on each as depending upon what the substrate is you may have to vary
it a bit.

One more thing.....NEVER give the client a file you "adjusted" I have actually had competing shops ask me for files I re-worked.
If you want to charge extra for the time you took or cost if sent out, call it a set-up fee or something similar. If you call
it "Graphic Re-work" or something like that they client will argue they paid for that so they ought to get the file then...

Just some thoughts.

[Scott Shepherd]

Marty, thanks for that! I've printed that off and stuck it on my wall. Fantastic tip. I ran through it myself on this very example and it worked really really well. GREAT, GREAT TIP!

[Tony Lenkic]

USAF_patch....

[Nathan Shaffer]

Nathan, do they have and engraving shop on base? (just checking the competion you may face :) )

This graphic was pretty good compared to most I have to deal with. If you have Photo Shop or Photo Paint you can do much of this
there quickly. Depending upon the size and substrate it may not have to be as good as you think to produce something nice.
If you plan on doing more work on base start to learn a variety of ways to get results quickly.

If you aren't using color or dealing with shades of grey, you really don't need a vector for this. Here is a version I did in PS that took about 20 seconds to do
using photo editing programs.

1 Open image, go to adjustments the to hue & saturation. There you can choose appropriate color channels and move the sliders about to get the effect
you want.

2 When you get the effect, convert to grey scale, then up the resolution to 300 or 600 dpi.

3 Now go to the adjustments, levels and work the the sliders to the best image.

On this I had to fiddle with compression and resolution to post, but the final version you save will be better quality.
You can tweek it a bit more if necassary, but this should be fine for most substrates.

I would start a folder for these type of graphics with notes on each as depending upon what the substrate is you may have to vary
it a bit.

One more thing.....NEVER give the client a file you "adjusted" I have actually had competing shops ask me for files I re-worked.
If you want to charge extra for the time you took or cost if sent out, call it a set-up fee or something similar. If you call
it "Graphic Re-work" or something like that they client will argue they paid for that so they ought to get the file then...

Just some thoughts.

Martin,
Yes, the engraving shop on base is still open, but is "limited" to engraving. The wood shop has been shut down. His qualilty is good but i have noticed repeat issues with his work. Lines in certain patches constantly missing no matter what size of burn. The things I am doing for my unit are far Cheaper, better quality, out of the box. One thing I do that no one else here does is to have people sign farewells on a sheet of paper then I engrave the signatures on the plaque.

Thank you for the tips on how to adjust images.

If anyone is willing to provide feedback on stuff I have done I would appreciate it. Is it better to post pics here or can I post a facebook page requesting feedback?

Thank you

Nathan

[Mike Null]

Nathan

Post your pictures here. Facebook links are not permitted.

[Nathan Shaffer]

Nathan

Post your pictures here. Facebook links are not permitted.

Mike,
Thank you

Nathan