Hi

I found this post on recreating plastics which I found very interesting!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-i-recreate-plastics

I do see it is 6 years old! But I have some questions hopefully someone may be able to answer

So I have scanned my plastics in and saved them as a lossless TIFF format

I have used the pen tool to create shapes round the plastics

I then read "Using the Pen tool, I start out by creating outlines of the plastics and removing anything from the image outside of the plastics themselves. This includes removing anything between the printed artwork and the edges of the plastic."

that I am at a loss at! I have managed to create a layer round the plastics, but I cannot find how to do this between the outside of the plastics and the image!
Now I have removed the background outside the plastics the handles for the vector shapes have now disappeared!

Also I have no idea what format to now save this work in to keep the transparency AND the vector settings!

Any help would be very much appreciated, I have a graphics place that will be able to print these if I can get them done, but am struggling with photoshop!

Many thanks in advance
Andrew
pla pin (resized).jpgbgnd (resized).jpg

Many thanks, The article did say photoshop was fine with the vector side, realistically then I don't stand a chance of reproducing these

Many thanks so here is the update, I managed to get a copy of illustrator CS5, been quite a learning curve!! I found when you wanted to do something there was always some step you had to do before it! I can see why there is no tutorial on how to use illustrator for pin plastics it really is not easy to explain!!

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That’s one original gottlieb 4 square plastic with the “ replacement” someone decided was a good idea!

So scanned it in and slowly used illustrator to create the black vector format for it.

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Created separate colour layers for the red, yellow and orange, and the base white layer to go on last, red shown below

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And finally all layers shown

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Very pleased with the outcome so far! Still got the drill holes to do but had to stop for tonight.

Thankyou for the tip on using illustrator, certainly a good move switching to that even though the learning curve is high!!

Cheers
Andrew

done and ready for the printers now

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original scan

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will do, took it to the printers this morning and the layers etc are just what they need, as far as I am aware they will be printing the black and colours onto clear vinyl then backing the white area with white vinyl then this will be stuck onto PETG sheet 1.5mm thick and cut out with the holes done too, that's how I understand it will be done, they are having to get the PETG so no idea on timescale for now

Well I thought I would have a go at the most complicated plastic I have on the machine, it’s got a crack on the top corner. It’s taken a lot of time but it’s turned out well and I am happy with how it looks on the pc

Side by side

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Black template

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Red

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Yellow

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Orange

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And gottlieb white!

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Screenshot as better quality picture!

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The printers have got back to me with the quote.

To print 4 of the small ones onto 1.5mm petg and cut them out using my file.... £50

so I did not think that bad at all! the plan now as I have the second image done is to take that to them and hopefully slowly do the remaining images the same and get them all done at the same time

Finally managed to do all the rest of the plastic pieces in Illustrator, nos 3, 4, 5, and 6, the files are now at the printers

Hers are the finished re-created plastic pics

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A-13344-L (resized).jpg

A-13344-R (resized).jpg

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On the printer! Test prints

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Call from the printers so went and got the newly made plastics! All laser cut out too so nice and smooth edges!!!

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And they did the white layer on the back to diffuse the filament lamp under!

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I got them to print the whites as white so it all removes the yellowing if the plastic as much as possible! I think they have done a cracking job!!! Very pleased with them!!

I did expect to see more of a difference in the old and new because of screen printing on the original and modern ink printing on the new ones, but I am well impressed how they have turned out!!! Very vibrant!!!!

Laser cut from A3 sheet

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