line drawing jaggies

I am attempting to copy/paste screen grabs from Solidworks B+W tech drawings into CS2.
note: blank composite 8.5x 11 document is at 288 dpi for future pasteing

so far I have decent results , but looking for improvement

I have not found a satisfactory means to import at higher resolution (don't have jpeg plug-in avail) and biggest artifacts are jaggies

here is the flow so far:
set SW to print preview for largest image >prt scrn copy PS: open new: set for clipboard 1152x864@ gray 72dpi
paste>crop @288dpi
image size: 576dpi/bicubic smooth
filter>brush stroke>accentuated edges @ w=2,b=20,sm=8 image>adj >levels: input = 150
image size : 288dpi
done

OR tried on orig size image>:
filter>stylize>diffuse>anisotropic
levels:input = 150
unsharp mask : 100/6/0
done

q: viewer sample images in both diffuse and unsharp above look better than final full size copy??

BTW where does "anti-alias" come into anything here? how can I apply at any step??

any suggestions greatly appreciated,
Stew Corman from sunny Endicott

A couple of extra steps that may help you get better results...

Instead of scaling up 2x, go up 4x, then do:
- 'Blur > Gaussian Blur'... use a setting that blurs all of the jaggies away, but only just. Too much will kill too much of the corners.
- Open 'Levels' and pull the black and white arrows towards each other until you have nice sharp edges.
- Scale back down 50% (or to target size desired)...

You should have minimal-to-none jaggies (if you still have jaggies, do more practice) and nice crisp edges.

Of course, you'll have no sharp corners... but you can't have everything. ;)

On Feb 16, 10:11 am, scorman wrote:

here is the flow so far:
set SW to print preview for largest image >prt scrn copy

Use Photoworks to render your image at high resolution. That should give you far better results than print preview.

-Martin

I have been experimenting the past two days and possibly cmare up with a means to get higher res inputs than the prtscr screen grab.

From Solidworks, I can save the output as a printer *.prn file, by setting up a dummy Postscript printer and direct the output to file.

Then from Acrobat, I can read in a generic Postscript file. I can then save it as a jpg to import into Photoshop

This way instead of screen grab at 1152x864, I get a 2772x1250 jpeg image.
Still not a smooth image image that I know the printer would spit out on paper directly from SW.

Has anyone played with this mode of operation??
Any hints would be appreciated.
May look for a dummy printer that has either very high res or very large printing area or both?

BTW, I had tried the gaussian blur technique a ways ago and it did not provide as much detail as the two methods I posted earlier

Thanks again for any inputs

Stew

"scorman" wrote in message

I have been experimenting the past two days and possibly cmare up with a means to get higher res inputs than the prtscr screen grab.
From Solidworks, I can save the output as a printer *.prn file, by setting up a dummy Postscript printer and direct the output to file.
Then from Acrobat, I can read in a generic Postscript file. I can then save it as a jpg to import into Photoshop

This way instead of screen grab at 1152x864, I get a 2772x1250 jpeg image.
Still not a smooth image image that I know the printer would spit out on paper directly from SW.

Has anyone played with this mode of operation??
Any hints would be appreciated.
May look for a dummy printer that has either very high res or very large printing area or both?

BTW, I had tried the gaussian blur technique a ways ago and it did not provide as much detail as the two methods I posted earlier
Thanks again for any inputs

Stew,
Your problem is that you are taking pixels (raster)that represent vectors and trying to improve the quality in a bitmap editing program, PS.

Have a look at
http://graphicssoft.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ /Ya&sdn=graphicssoft&cdn=compute&tm=50&gps=1 15_11_1020_629&f=22&su=p284.8.150.ip_&tt=14& bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//sourceforge.net/projects/auto trace

TWK

"scorman" wrote in message

I have been experimenting the past two days and possibly cmare up with a means to get higher res inputs than the prtscr screen grab.
From Solidworks, I can save the output as a printer *.prn file, by setting up a dummy Postscript printer and direct the output to file.
Then from Acrobat, I can read in a generic Postscript file. I can then save it as a jpg to import into Photoshop

This way instead of screen grab at 1152x864, I get a 2772x1250 jpeg image.
Still not a smooth image image that I know the printer would spit out on paper directly from SW.

Has anyone played with this mode of operation??
Any hints would be appreciated.
May look for a dummy printer that has either very high res or very large printing area or both?

BTW, I had tried the gaussian blur technique a ways ago and it did not provide as much detail as the two methods I posted earlier
Thanks again for any inputs

Stew
Check out
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/bitmaptovector/Bitmap_to_Ve ctor_Conversion_Tracing_Software_Raster_to_Vector.htm
TWK