How to open an .art file?
Sarah Newberry
I have a client with artwork in a file with the extension ".ART" As I
understand it, it was used originally for an embroidery project. I need to
open it to make some changes but I can't seem to open it? Does anyone have
an idea on how to rename it or open this file type?
Cheers,
Sarah N.
Odysseus
first (e.g. I believe Streamline uses this extension). Try changing the
extension to ".AI" -- then FreeHand might be able to recognize it.
--Odysseus
Tom Lai
into FH
Also make a copy of the file and change extension to .ai and try importing
again.
Cheers
Tom
R U on Mac / PC ??
Ian Kelleigh
That's an old Illustrator format. It should work fine.
Which brings me to my next post...
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Ian Kelleigh
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Sarah Newberry
I followed your instructions and no dice. I'm working in PC format. Hmmm.
Cheers anyway,
Sarah N.
"Tom Lai" <thoma...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:9f71u7$5ft$1...@forums.macromedia.com...
Ken Kehl
<sarah_n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I followed your instructions and no dice. I'm working in PC format. Hmmm.
I've seen the .art extension used as an AOL graphic format. I'm fairly
certain it's a bitmap or other raster image format.
There is also the strong possibility that the embroidery software used
a proprietary graphics format which will be unreadable by any other
application. If that software is Windows software, and can be
obtained, you might be able to take screen shots of the art, or even
print to Distiller.
____
Ken
ellipsis design
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Dan Egan
"Sarah Newberry" <sarah_n...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:9f76nd$bc2$1...@forums.macromedia.com...
> Tom,
>
> I followed your instructions and no dice. I'm working in PC format.
Hmmm.
As Ken stated, it may very well be a proprietary format used by the
embroidery machine. I have seen this before in both the embroidery business
and the sign making business. This is how the manufacturers make extra $$$$.
Most "stitch shops" have to send all artwork in to the manufacturer in order
to have it "digitized". They usually charge $100+ and it takes about a week.
I don't think they will give much information out about the file format as
they want to keep the business for themselves.
Pertaining to the AOL .ART files.. AOL uses some strange compression on all
attachments that can cause numerous problems. *Sometimes* you can drag the
.ART file onto Zippit or Stuffit's expander and it will decompress the file
into something usable... but I don't think this is the case for your
situation.
Please let us know if you find a way of "cracking" this file format... I
would like to know more about the format these places are using. We had our
company logo "Digitized" for $125 and it came out looking like crap... I
would much rather like to provide them with a disk for our embroidered
items.
--
Dan Egan
d...@progressiveprinting.net
Progressive Printing & Graphics
148 East Columbia Ave.
Battle Creek, MI 49015
(616/800) 965-8909
FAX:(616) 965-2783
James E. Talmage
Illustrator versions earlier than 7 (5.5, 3, 88, and 1.1). Isn't it the
normal Illustrator extension for these versions? FH (speaking of FH8)
adds .ai only when exporting to Illustrator 7.
JET
James E. Talmage
> Most "stitch shops" have to send all artwork in to the manufacturer in
> order to have it "digitized". They usually charge $100+ and it takes about
> a week. I don't think they will give much information out about the file
> format as they want to keep the business for themselves.
I don't think it's as sinister as all that. I'm certainly no embroidery
expert here (so corrections or additions welcome), but occasionally
provide FH artwork for embroidery "digitizing."
The thing is, "digitizing" (dumb term--has less to do with "digital";
more to do with "stitching") embroidery is the process of filling the
design with any of several kinds of stitches. Like the process of
optimizing a vector drawing for cutting from sign vinyl, it's not simply
a matter of file conversion. Expertise is seriously involved (even
moreso than in sign cutting); decisions dictated by practical mechanical
considerations (kind of fabric, thread count, strength and size of
thread, distance across the areas to be filled, the relative position
and arrangement of same-colored elements of the design) and aesthetic
considerations (many kinds of stitches, each with its own visual "effect").
In my former ignorance about the matter, I went 'round and 'round with
some associates involved in the embroidery trade. I thought it to be
analagous to the sign cutting situation, feeling certain that the
software they use OUGHT to be able to simply convert a PostScript Bezier
path into its native file format and then automatically fill the path
with the user-specified stitch type, and thereby avoid having a third
party re-invent the artwork (I got so sick of sign shops wrecking my
designs that I finally just bought a cutter myself). I still think the
embroidery trade COULD and SHOULD better accomodate PostScript Beziers,
but I quickly learned that this would really affect a relatively minor
part of the overall task. Simple truth is, just about every drawing has
to be "interpreted" by a human into embroidery in order to get good
results. It's like trying to reproduce an oil painting in
watercolor--you can do it, but there's much more to it than merely
copying the outlines accurately and alot of educated judgement is
involved. Having to redraw the outlines is a relatively minor part of it.
I even went so far as to obtain an evaluation copy of an embroidery
program myself--PUNTO--a program that DOES, in fact, import EPS curves
AND at the time, the only embroidery package available on Mac. It was an
awakening. There's alot more to it than just importing and filling the
outlines, and frankly, the typical $100-$150 fee for doing it is peanuts
by comparison to going rates for illustration. Like the sign business,
embroidery is a low-margin operation. A guy's got to spend an hour or so
to convert a design to stitches that can actually be followed by a
sewing machine and yet give decent results; he has to do so hoping the
customer can understand the limitations inherent in the medium--all for
the profit involved in producing a couple dozen imprinted golf shirts.
So, like those used in the sign trade, the software that does it is sold
to a very vertical market; and the pricing reflects that. Sign cutting
software isn't all that exotic or sophisticated, but it's obscenely
expensive for what it does. Same for embroider software.
JET
Dan Egan
"James E. Talmage" <J...@IllustrationETC.com> wrote in message
news:3B17C704...@IllustrationETC.com...
> The thing is, "digitizing" (dumb term--has less to do with "digital";
> more to do with "stitching") embroidery is the process of filling the
> design with any of several kinds of stitches. Like the process of
> optimizing a vector drawing for cutting from sign vinyl, it's not simply
> a matter of file conversion. Expertise is seriously involved (even
> moreso than in sign cutting); decisions dictated by practical mechanical
> considerations (kind of fabric, thread count, strength and size of
> thread, distance across the areas to be filled, the relative position
> and arrangement of same-colored elements of the design) and aesthetic
> considerations (many kinds of stitches, each with its own visual
"effect").
Thanks for the information. As you perhaps originally thought, I assumed
they were just scanning the artwork, filling it with stitch patterns and
hitting print... guess there's a lot more to it then that.... gee.. I sound
like some of MY clients who don't understand the concepts of offset printing
and color separations! Well, I didn't think it was exactly THAT easy...but
was thinking in terms of how we work.
I agree that they should be able to at least work from EPS file formats
better than they appear to be. I really got a bad taste in my mouth when we
got our logo back and it looked BAD.. especially the curved type. The place
here could not take any file format I gave them... they HAD to have a B/W
printout.. which was scanned(poorly) and then "Digitized". We never got our
shirts done due to the poor quality...been looking for someone else who can
reproduce our logo and maintain the quality. This place actually wanted us
to change our logo in order to make it easier for them....NOT the answer I
was looking for.
James E. Talmage
> got our logo back and it looked BAD.
Believe me, I sympathize, Dan. Thing is; it's like sign work in that you
can take the same art to different shops and get good results from one;
lousy results from another. But its different in this regard: If you
take you logo to a sign shop (assuming the EPS is built
correctly--simple closed paths, no strokes, no blends or other
artificial effects, etc.) and get lousy results it's probably merely a
matter of expertise. The sign shop doesn't know how to get your EPS open
in its cutting software. So they print it and then scan and autotrace
the print and the result looks like garbage. Or its a matter of
irresponsibility. They don't have the font you used, can't open the
vectors, so they substitute a font they decide is "close enough--no one
will notice."
But in embroidery, its usually a matter of expertise AND talent.
Regardless of the specific workflow, the art not only has to be
translated (expertise), but INTERPRETED (talent). A sufficiently
talented embroidery digitizer guy can do amazing things within the
limitations of his medium. And he has the professional integrity to tell
you (even at the risk of losing the project) when you are asking for the
impossible. In this regards, its similar to buying illustration
services; you get what you pay for.
> The place here could not take any file format I gave them... they HAD to
> have a B/W printout..
Sounds like a somewhat backward and old fashioned shop. Find another.
Working with a local guy here, for example, I email him a vector PDF. He
also has to trace a Tiff, but when I deliver it as PDF, he can zoom it
to his screen size and take a screenshot or rasterize it in Photoshop to
the size he needs to work with comfortably. At any rate, he doesn't have
to print it and then scan the print (dumb). He also has a stitching
machine of his own, so he can generate a one-off proof before the job is
committed to the shop that does the whole production run. But of course,
you pay for the services you require.
> This place actually wanted us to change our logo in order to make it easier
> for them....NOT the answer I was looking for.
That, of course, is a stupid request. But far better than what SOME
shops will do; simply presume to CHANGE the artwork to suit their
capabilities. THAT would make me mad.
It DOES illustrate a principle of good logo design, however: If it is
desired that a logo be versatile enough to be reproducable in any and
all mediums, then the limitations of any and all those mediums must be
factored into the design itself. We print designers think of 72ppi web
graphics as "low resolution." Embroidery is REALLY low resolution. For
example, you simply can't stitch onto a course open weave fabric a logo
if, at the requested size, its circular type scales to eighth inch. You
either take liberties with the design itself, or you enlarge the design
(embroidery has size limitations on the other end, too), or choose a
different reproduction method.
Nowadays, so many page layout designers call themselves "logo designers"
yet have little or no appreciation for the special considerations of
identity graphics, such as reproduction/delivery versatility. They think
logo design is simply a matter of coming up with a clever graphic symbol
and then rendering it in some way that "looks good." I'm sure you've
seen what I mean.
Personally, I don't understand the current widespread preference for
embroidery. Well done embroidery is certainly beautiful. But good
quality silkscreen work is much more versatile in terms of what it can
reproduce. Done right, it looks classier to me than embroidery in which
the requirements of the art so easily pushes the limits of the
capability of the medium. Perhaps you should consider going that route
for your imprinted shirts.
JET
Kabouter Immoreel
embroided useing specialities such as puff ink and 3d printing techniques
(pretty new).
Our embroidery mostley uses jpegs wich they send to be coverted.
But there are appz that can import .ai and convert it aswell.
Most of the time screenprint is the best sollution especially for larger
illustrations("softer hand", but being an ex-screenprinter I'm a bit
prejadice (excuse my spelling, were not all using english as our own
language...)
But some times (twenty shirts with different names) embroidery is the
cheapest sollution....
Ken Kehl
<J...@IllustrationETC.com> wrote:
> Personally, I don't understand the current widespread preference for
> embroidery. Well done embroidery is certainly beautiful. But good
> quality silkscreen work is much more versatile in terms of what it can
> reproduce. Done right, it looks classier to me than embroidery in which
> the requirements of the art so easily pushes the limits of the
> capability of the medium.
After several trips through the wash/dry cycle, the advantages of
embroidery will become more apparent.
Deeper than that though, embroidery (even though it is largely
automated) still has an aura of hand work and quality about it, which
is something that tends to evoke a warm, fuzzy feeling in most people.
______
Dan Egan
"Ken Kehl" <ellips...@concentric.net> wrote in message
news:3b1bbac...@forums.macromedia.com...
> After several trips through the wash/dry cycle, the advantages of
> embroidery will become more apparent.
Yup.
>
> Deeper than that though, embroidery (even though it is largely
> automated) still has an aura of hand work and quality about it, which
> is something that tends to evoke a warm, fuzzy feeling in most people.
Yup. Warm Fuzzies is what we are looking for. I just think really sharp
looking embroidery looks classy.... especially in the shirt-pocket area-
which is what we are wanting to do. I would not use embroidery for a large
area of a shirt. And to be able to personalize each item at a resonable
price is a great benefit. The main problem with our logo is the curved
type... which we just can't do without. When they did a sample for us it
just looked like crap... not to mention the little line connecting each
letter...there's gotta be a way around that.
wouter
> From: "Dan Egan" <d...@progressiveprinting.net>
> Organization: Progressive Printing & Graphics
> Reply-To: "Dan Egan" <d...@progressiveprinting.net>
> Newsgroups: macromedia.freehand
> Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 18:39:41 -0400
> Subject: Re: Embroidery (from .art thread)
>
> not to mention the little line connecting each
> letter...there's gotta be a way around that.
>
Any good shop would cut those little lines away.... but to some people a
scissor seems an alien device...
Bout the washing of screenprinted items... if its printed & dried properly
(right temp) its absolutely no problem...
Bill Schuhle
>shirts done due to the poor quality...been looking for someone else who can
>reproduce our logo and maintain the quality.
Dan,
A while back I e-mailed a .GIF file of some artwork created in FH to a
company called WearGuard (you may have heard of them -- work clothes, uniforms,
etc.) for an estimate on producing some embroidered shirts for a transportation
company I was working for. What we got back was nothing short of stunning. All
I asked for was an estimate, mind you. What they did (at absolutely no cost to
us) was digitize the design and stitch it out at actual size for a shirt back
as well as at a size that would work over a shirt pocket (not something we even
asked about). I was blown away. At the time I was also working part-time in a
screen printing shop and we jobbed out embroidery all the time, so I got to see
different levels of embroidery quality. I'll say it again -- the quality,
accuracy, and attention to detail in WearGuard's work was nothing short of
stunning. And, not even factoring in the free stitchout, their pricing was
quite attractive as well.
As I guess you can tell, I'd highly recommend getting in touch with them. My
whole transaction with WearGuard took place about a year and a half ago and at
that time I dealt by e-mail with a lady named Ann Dickinson
(ann_di...@wearguard.com). Whether she's still there, I don't know, but
it's worth a try. I checked and they also have a web site at www.wearguard.com.
Good luck!
Bill