Red Ink from now on.

[tgiro]

I convert all my blackline patterns to redline. Judy Gale Roberst spoiled me. To make a pattern with a redline image, I use Irfanview -- https://www.irfanview.com/

Irfanview is a freebie graphic viewer. it allows you to view, crop, enlarge, reduce, and even change the color of graphic images. When I scan a pattern into the computer, I always save the pattern as a jpeg. Although Irvanview will read and display other format, also.  BUT - it doesn't do PDF.

Once you have Irfanview loaded, load your pattern jpeg into Irfanview.

Click on the Images menu in the tool bar then click on Color Corrections or type a [Shift]-G.

When the Color Corrections window opens, find the Red (R) slider button under Color Balance. Move the slider all the way to the right and click the OK button. You'll see that your pattern has turned red. Save the red image, so you can use it later and then print your red pattern.

Have fun with it.

[OCtoolguy]

16 hours ago, tgiro said:

I convert all my blackline patterns to redline. Judy Gale Roberst spoiled me. To make a pattern with a redline image, I use Irfanview -- https://www.irfanview.com/

Irfanview is a freebie graphic viewer. it allows you to view, crop, enlarge, reduce, and even change the color of graphic images. When I scan a pattern into the computer, I always save the pattern as a jpeg. Although Irvanview will read and display other format, also.  BUT - it doesn't do PDF.

Once you have Irfanview loaded, load your pattern jpeg into Irfanview.

Click on the Images menu in the tool bar then click on Color Corrections or type a [Shift]-G.

When the Color Corrections window opens, find the Red (R) slider button under Color Balance. Move the slider all the way to the right and click the OK button. You'll see that your pattern has turned red. Save the red image, so you can use it later and then print your red pattern.

Have fun with it.

Thank you so much for that tip. I have been using Irfanview for years but I never have messed with that setting. It makes things so much better.

 

[Rockytime]

Hi Ray. You asked what I paid for red copies. Here goes. I had 5 patterns. Each needed to be enlarged at a different percentage. I ordered 4 of each pattern for a total of 20 patterns I paid $11.25 including tax. That's only $0 56.25 each. These enlargements were 125, 150, 160, 165, 176 percent. Lots of fooling around for less than 57 cents each. I always order multiple copies. I sometimes mess up a project and start over. The extras I put in a binder for safe keeping.

[OCtoolguy]

57 minutes ago, Rockytime said:

Hi Ray. You asked what I paid for red copies. Here goes. I had 5 patterns. Each needed to be enlarged at a different percentage. I ordered 4 of each pattern for a total of 20 patterns I paid $11.25 including tax. That's only $0 56.25 each. These enlargements were 125, 150, 160, 165, 176 percent. Lots of fooling around for less than 57 cents each. I always order multiple copies. I sometimes mess up a project and start over. The extras I put in a binder for safe keeping.

Not bad Les. It sure beats slamming your head against the wall trying to figure out what makes the printer tick.

 

[John B]

On 9/28/2018 at 2:01 AM, Foxfold said:

Well I've overcome one hurdle at least. If I 'save' my downloadable patterns, then open them with Inkscape,  'Select' the pattern and change the fill and stroke colours it works beautifully, and so simple.  I've done one with red lines on a grey background and I've done one with red lines on a white background so it just shows the red lines when printed.  It just means that I'll have to go through my box of paper patterns and try and remember where I got them from and download them to my 'scrolling' folder on my computer and  although that is going to be a pain in the butt, I think I like red lines enough to go to that trouble.

No need to re- download your paper patterns Brenda, just scan them into your computer and do the same as you have been doing. Not sure what format you are using, but you will just have to save the image as that format, eg .jpg, ,gif etc.

Edited October 4, 2018 by John B
spelling

[Foxfold]

On ‎10‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 5:10 AM, John B said:

No need to re- download your paper patterns Brenda, just scan them into your computer and do the same as you have been doing. Not sure what format you are using, but you will just have to save the image as that format, eg .jpg, ,gif etc.

Mmmm, problem is I don't have a scanner. Perhaps I'll put one on my list to Santa

[OCtoolguy]

1 hour ago, Foxfold said:

Mmmm, problem is I don't have a scanner. Perhaps I'll put one on my list to Santa

A used scanner should be easy to find. Most printers now include a scanner so folks have sold off their stand alone units. Do you have any kind of a site like our "craigslist"? I find everything I want on there.

 

Edited October 5, 2018 by octoolguy

[rjweb]

I went to both kinkos and office max and they can’t print my black pattern on white paper in red ink, with all those fancy high tech machines I was surprised, RJ 

[OCtoolguy]

Did you try opening them in Irfanview? If you do that, then under the "image" menu there is a "color correction" option. Open that, slide the red button all the way to the right side. It will make your pattern red/pink. Save it as "red" whatever name you gave it. They should be able to print it from that.

 

[rjweb]

I can’t use irfanview not Apple friendly, thx RJ 

[OCtoolguy]

7 minutes ago, rjweb said:

I can’t use irfanview not Apple friendly, thx RJ 

I would think there must be a way to do it on an Apple. Aren't they the "do all, end all"? Must be a way. I just did a quick search and came up with this. It may not be the way but I'm sure there must be a way.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204995

 

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by octoolguy

[Rockytime]

1 hour ago, rjweb said:

I went to both kinkos and office max and they can’t print my black pattern on white paper in red ink, with all those fancy high tech machines I was surprised, RJ 

I go to an Office Max/Depot and they do it all the time. However, I went there the other day to have it done and the two girls who usually do it for me were not at the counter. A young man waited on me to make the copies. He was working on the computer for several minuets and I asked him what he was doing. He said he was making the conversion in Photo Shop. I asked why not just do it on the copy machine. He said the machine is not capable of doing that. I told him the two girls do it all the time and he just said that he had no idea how to do it. Several days later I happened to stop at another Office Max/Depot to have the same thing done. The clerk said that it was not possible. Don't they cross train these people? Now I go to the original store and only let the two knowledgeable girls do it for me. I guess I am just lucky. When I was in business for 30 years I always tried to cross train my people.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience.

[OCtoolguy]

35 minutes ago, Rockytime said:

I go to an Office Max/Depot and they do it all the time. However, I went there the other day to have it done and the two girls who usually do it for me were not at the counter. A young man waited on me to make the copies. He was working on the computer for several minuets and I asked him what he was doing. He said he was making the conversion in Photo Shop. I asked why not just do it on the copy machine. He said the machine is not capable of doing that. I told him the two girls do it all the time and he just said that he had no idea how to do it. Several days later I happened to stop at another Office Max/Depot to have the same thing done. The clerk said that it was not possible. Don't they cross train these people? Now I go to the original store and only let the two knowledgeable girls do it for me. I guess I am just lucky. When I was in business for 30 years I always tried to cross train my people.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience.

I'd sure like to know how to do it on my laser printer. I'm going to have to do some research. 

 

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

1 hour ago, Rockytime said:

I go to an Office Max/Depot and they do it all the time. However, I went there the other day to have it done and the two girls who usually do it for me were not at the counter. A young man waited on me to make the copies. He was working on the computer for several minuets and I asked him what he was doing. He said he was making the conversion in Photo Shop. I asked why not just do it on the copy machine. He said the machine is not capable of doing that. I told him the two girls do it all the time and he just said that he had no idea how to do it. Several days later I happened to stop at another Office Max/Depot to have the same thing done. The clerk said that it was not possible. Don't they cross train these people? Now I go to the original store and only let the two knowledgeable girls do it for me. I guess I am just lucky. When I was in business for 30 years I always tried to cross train my people.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience.

I do all my copying and pattern enlarging and shrinking at FedX. I use their copiers and it is very easy. I used their blueprint machine too and not much to it. I do not have the time on my computer to learn all that stuff. Then write it off on taxes at end of year. 

[rjweb]

John, 

i was in a FedEx store today and they said that was impossible to copy the pattern in black to make it red, were you able to change your color, RJ 

[Rockytime]

46 minutes ago, rjweb said:

John, 

i was in a FedEx store today and they said that was impossible to copy the pattern in black to make it red, were you able to change your color, RJ 

I guess their equipment is not that sophisticated. I have been taking black patterns in for a long time and getting them in copied in color. The copier they used is very large with a large touch screen. The operator presses a few commands and out comes color from black. I always make sure I get the same operators.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

5 hours ago, rjweb said:

John, 

i was in a FedEx store today and they said that was impossible to copy the pattern in black to make it red, were you able to change your color, RJ 

If you are asking me I never tried to change to red. I like the black and white paper. If the pattern is red it can be turned to black with a touch of a buton so I assume it can be reversed. I will have to check next time I am in there. Probably next week some time. I have a couple more patterns to make up and then it is show time come Dec 1 

[barb.j.enders]

On 9/28/2018 at 1:03 AM, octoolguy said:

I've captured that video on my computer and I've watched it more than once. I still can't get my scans to work that way. I've spent way too many hours trying to get Inkscape to work for me. I'm truly frustrated and until I can get someone knowledgeable to actually show me in the same room , I'm sort of giving up. I have other things to do. Maybe someday I'll figure it out.

 

I'm with you on the "too frustrated"  Until I can sit for hours and hours at the computer, I don't learn very well by watching videos or reading the books.  

[CharleyL]

18 hours ago, JTTHECLOCKMAN said:

I do all my copying and pattern enlarging and shrinking at FedX. I use their copiers and it is very easy. I used their blueprint machine too and not much to it. I do not have the time on my computer to learn all that stuff. Then write it off on taxes at end of year. 

 

Changing the line and background colors of an image -

Any photo software, not just Irfanview, should let you change the color of your image in a similar manner. PhotoShop, PhotoShop Elements, Gimp, etc. will all allow changing the colors by varying the tint adjustments, in this case to "full red". Even "Paint 3D" on Windows 10 will let you do this but the "line" and "fill" commands on Paint will be what you choose to do it. Once changed and saved as a red line image, any inkjet printer or color laser printer will make as many copies as you want  I use PhotoShop because I once used it professionally for photo restoration and retouching work, so it is almost a second language to me, but any of these programs will work for this.

Putting multiple small images on a large page -

Another thing that photo programs will do very well is to let you put or combine many images or copies of one image on a single sheet of paper. For small scroll saw work, this saves a lot of paper. To do this in a photo processing program,

I open the file containing the image that I want to make multiple copies of and then also open a new blank image the size of the paper that you will be printing on.

In Photoshop there are horizontal and vertical guide lines that you can  position anywhere by dragging them one at a time from the horizontal and vertical ruler scales that appear at the left and top of your image. These show on the computer display, but don't print out in the final image. I drag a horizontal guide line down to about 1/2" from the top and a vertical guide over about 1/2" from the left. These will make it easy to place the upper and left edge of an image onto this new blank file so it won't be affected by the printer margins.

Using the "Move tool" (in Photoshop this is a horizontal and vertical double pointed arrow). I click and hold on the small photo image and then drag it onto the large image file. Once there I can move it around anywhere that I want the same way using the "move tool". So I can position it in the upper left corner formed by the two blue guide lines. This image is kind of on a clear layer on top of the large blank image file that's called a "Layer". It's kind of an electronic version of a clear piece of plastic that you just placed an image on. You can slide this image in any direction my moving this clear piece of plastic without it actually being on the background. OK, you now have the image that's on layer 1 in place.

Now move two more guidelines out from the rulers to positions where their upper left intersections will be where you want to place the second copy of the small image. Now go back to the other file with the small image on it and repeat the process, dragging a second copy of the small image over to the larger image file and position it so that it's upper left corner is in the upper left intersection of the second tow blue guidelines. This image is now on a second "layer" or clear plastic sheet that's sitting on top of the previous layer. You can move it anywhere you want to with the "move tool" and the previous small image under this "layer" won't be affected by what you do to it. 

You can repeat this process, moving additional small images over and adding guidelines until the whole sheet is full. If you should ever want to move one of the lower "layers" or make any other kind of changes to one of them, you will need to select the layer that image is on. (This is kind of like pulling a playing card out of the middle of a deck of cards and working on it and then putting it back into the deck). So you can go back and change any one layer without affecting any of the others, but you can look down through this whole stack and see all of the images, as if they are all sitting in their positions on the base level image file.

Once you have all of the images on their layers and positioned where you want them, save the large multiple image file including all of the layers. You can then print the full sheet of small images as many times as you would like.  You can even still go back and open this full page file and change any one or more of the images on it by selecting the correct "layer" and making whatever adjustment that you would like to.   There is a command available called "Flatten Image". If you use this command it will remove all of the electronic sheets of plastic and put all of your small images on the base layer. This will reduce the file size of the full page file, but you need to realize that when you do this, you will no longer be able to separately move or modify only one small image on the sheet without affecting the rest of them. I never "Flatten" an image file, unless I will be sending it to a customer and I don't want them to ever be able to edit each small image in the file.

Well, this description above tells you how to fill a full page with multiple copies of small images quite easily using any version of Photoshop. Other photo editing programs will also have this same capability, but may use different names for the commands. It will take a little while for you to get good at this, so don't expect perfection on the first try.

 

Experiment with these two tips and don't hesitate to ask questions if you have trouble doing them. I'm certain that I can help if you are using one of the photo processing programs, especially on of the PhotoShop versions.

 

Learn how to do both of these, and get yourself a scanner and an inkjet printer, any you will pay for both of them quickly since you won't be paying FeDEx, a local print or copy shop,  or even wasting paper any more. Combination scanners, copiers, FAX, and inkjet printers are available at very reasonable prices now and will do all of these functions in one small machine for just a few hundred dollars,  and even cheaper if you buy a used one.

 

Charley

Edited October 23, 2018 by CharleyL

[rjweb]

Ok just got back from Office Depot and at first said it was not possible, so he asked his manager and he did it no problem, and in the process show 2 other workers how to make the patterns red. So I am good to go now that I know where to go, and the people know how to do it, RJ 

[Rockytime]

So glad it worked out for you. Too bad they don't cross train better. GO RED!

[OCtoolguy]

1 hour ago, Rockytime said:

So glad it worked out for you. Too bad they don't cross train better. GO RED!

By RED you do mean Red Sox, right? I hate the Doggers.

 

[rjweb]

Ray,

Watching baseball is like watching paint dry, nascar is the exciting sport, RJ 

[OCtoolguy]

3 hours ago, rjweb said:

Ray,

Watching baseball is like watching paint dry, nascar is the exciting sport, RJ 

Actually, I'm not a fan of any sport that uses round balls with the exception of billiards. I am an avid Nascar fan (not Kyle Busch) and college football. Go Trojans.

 

[amazingkevin]

On 9/27/2018 at 7:53 AM, tomsteve said:

foxfold, if ya figure out how to switch them over to red, can ya let us know? i still cant figure it out. cut one pattern that had red lines and what a breeze it was. but cant figure out how to make black lines red on my printer.

Rapid risizer.com has this option