Looking for spot color filters

Well I’m visiting this old topic again looking for a nice solution in a box. I’m not an art professional. As a hobby I reproduce parts for old pinball machines. The absolute most difficult part of this process is the reproduction of the original artwork.

All original artwork is screen printed. It is almost always spot color. I produce playfields, which are 2′ by 4′ sheets of plywood with inlayed plastic lenses and artwork screened on top. I start with a scan of an original playfield and start tracing out the picture in a slow painfull process.

I would really love to find a photshop filter that analyses the image and separates the pixels into the correct colors, based on the histogram of likely spot colors found in the image and the color of the surounding pixels. The ideal product would be used to create color seps. It may be required to inhance the resolution of the image to minimize the bitmap look. I have actually put an entire playfield into Illustrator as a vector image. The look is stunning but the time it took was outrageous. I’m looking to create the same look with less time. I think if I can clean up the colors, then maybe I can get away with doing only the black layer in vector graphics.

There are some examples of this type of art found at
http://www.ballsofsteel.net/
These are smaller pieces. What I do is too large for viewing on the internet. In fact, my images aften crash the computer just from trying to open and manipulate the image.

Anyone who can help speed up the process of restoring this artwork is a hero in my book. The ideas and sugestions offered are valued and appreciated.
Greg Walker
HalifaxPinball
http://halifaxpinball.dyn.ca/ (site under construction)

Well I’m visiting this old topic again looking for a nice solution in a

I’m not an art professional. As a hobby I reproduce parts for old pinball machines. The absolute most difficult part of this process is the reproduction of the original artwork.

All original artwork is screen printed. It is almost always spot color. I produce playfields, which are 2′ by 4′ sheets of plywood with inlayed plastic lenses and artwork screened on top. I start with a scan of an original playfield and start tracing out the picture in a slow painfull process.

I would really love to find a photshop filter that analyses the image and separates the pixels into the correct colors, based on the histogram of likely spot colors found in the image and the color of the surounding pixels. The ideal product would be used to create color seps. It may be required to inhance the resolution of the image to minimize the bitmap

I have actually put an entire playfield into Illustrator as a vector

The look is stunning but the time it took was outrageous. I’m looking to create the same look with less time. I think if I can clean up the

then maybe I can get away with doing only the black layer in vector graphics.

There are some examples of this type of art found at
http://www.ballsofsteel.net/
These are smaller pieces. What I do is too large for viewing on the internet. In fact, my images aften crash the computer just from trying to open and manipulate the image.

Anyone who can help speed up the process of restoring this artwork is a

in my book. The ideas and sugestions offered are valued and appreciated.
Greg Walker
HalifaxPinball
http://halifaxpinball.dyn.ca/ (site under construction)

There are several stand-alone programs that convert bit-mapped art into vector format. For starters, three commercial programs that are fairly widely available are

Adobe Streamline
Adobe Illustrator (trace capability)
Corel Trace

There are several others, including at least one Linux-based offering.

RSD99 wrote:

There are several stand-alone programs that convert bit-mapped art into vector format. For starters, three commercial programs that are fairly widely available are

Adobe Streamline
Adobe Illustrator (trace capability)
Corel Trace

There are several others, including at least one Linux-based offering.

I thought (maybe I am wrong) the real desire of Halifax was this:
"I would really love to find a photshop filter that analyses the image and separates the pixels into the correct colors, based on the histogram of likely spot colors found in the image and the color of the surounding pixels. The ideal
product would be used to create color seps. It may be
required to inhance the resolution of the image to minimize the bitmap look."

For what vectorizing bit-maps (raster images) is
concerned…….I am really curious what Illustrator CS2 is going to bring, from what I heard it sounds good. Now can I spend the money on it……..
—
Peter

You apparently missed the sentence following the one you quoted … where he posted

"… I have actually put an entire playfield into Illustrator as a vector image.
The look is stunning but the time it took was outrageous. I’m looking to create the same look with less time. …"

That’s what Adobe Streamline and CorelTrace were created to do.

HalifaxPinball wrote:

Well I’m visiting this old topic again looking for a nice solution in a box.
I’m not an art professional. As a hobby I reproduce parts for old pinball machines. The absolute most difficult part of this process is the reproduction of the original artwork.

All original artwork is screen printed. It is almost always spot color. I produce playfields, which are 2′ by 4′ sheets of plywood with inlayed plastic lenses and artwork screened on top. I start with a scan of an original playfield and start tracing out the picture in a slow painfull process.

I would really love to find a photshop filter that analyses the image and separates the pixels into the correct colors, based on the histogram of likely spot colors found in the image and the color of the surounding pixels. The ideal product would be used to create color seps. It may be required to inhance the resolution of the image to minimize the bitmap look.
I have actually put an entire playfield into Illustrator as a vector image.
The look is stunning but the time it took was outrageous. I’m looking to create the same look with less time. I think if I can clean up the colors,
then maybe I can get away with doing only the black layer in vector graphics.

There are some examples of this type of art found at
http://www.ballsofsteel.net/
These are smaller pieces. What I do is too large for viewing on the internet. In fact, my images aften crash the computer just from trying to open and manipulate the image.

Anyone who can help speed up the process of restoring this artwork is a hero
in my book. The ideas and sugestions offered are valued and appreciated.
Greg Walker
HalifaxPinball
http://halifaxpinball.dyn.ca/ (site under construction)

I remember your post from……what……a year ago?

I love the artwork mr. Pinball. Maybe you should give this suggestion to Adobe. On the newsserver from Adobe you can do that. I must say the suggestion, if made real, would mean a revolution:) —
Peter

Well I’m visiting this old topic again looking for a nice solution in a box. I’m not an art professional. As a hobby I reproduce parts for old pinball machines. The absolute most difficult part of this process is the reproduction of the original artwork.

All original artwork is screen printed. It is almost always spot color. I produce playfields, which are 2′ by 4′ sheets of plywood with inlayed plastic lenses and artwork screened on top. I start with a scan of an original playfield and start tracing out the picture in a slow painfull process.

I would really love to find a photshop filter that analyses the image and separates the pixels into the correct colors, based on the histogram of likely spot colors found in the image and the color of the surounding pixels.

There are some examples of this type of art found at
http://www.ballsofsteel.net/
These are smaller pieces. What I do is too large for viewing on the internet. In fact, my images aften crash the computer just from trying to open and manipulate the image.