I'm looking into the possibility of buying an ALPS (well, OKI) printer to be able to do my own decals on occasion. Unfortunately, I'm no wizard with graphics software. Somehow I don't believe the printer will be able to tell background white apart from decal white on its own, so I suspect I'll have to do this myself. How tricky is this? Will I need special software to pull it off (GIMP and Coreldraw are available, preference would be GIMP)?
Thanks for any help.
Rob
Rob van Riel
Hi Rob,
I hope you'll can find an OKI 5000, or ALPS, in France the answer is "no more built, no more available" ! :(
To print white, you actually print black, and use a printing option called "spot color" to tell the printer to use the white ribbon. Create the art as a negative -- black where you want white, and white where you want nothing. Spot color will print only the one color; if you want other colors, you must also use a printing option called "multi-page" or "overlay", which tells the printer that you'll be printing again on the same sheet of paper so it won't release the paper when finished.
The best way to do print decals white and other colors is to use a graphics program that allows you to create layers. In one layer you create your normal full-color image. In a second layer you create the "white" image, and make sure it's perfectly aligned with the color layer. You can then print the two layers as separate passes, using spot color for the white layer.
This is going to take some practice, but it sounds like I could get the hang of it. Thanks for the info.
Rob
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