Question about PCBs, PDFs, and GIFs :)

[NeveSSL]

Hi all!  I was wondering how I am supposed to take the .GIF's of the Ready-To-Transfer Circuit Board Layouts on GGG to PDF's or whatever I need to use to get them to actually be the right size?  They print out HUGE as is.  What do I need to do?  Thanks!

Brandon

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

InfranView is a good (free!) prog for changing image size & other attributes.
When you do a test printout, check the chip holes to see the size is right. You can fake anything but the chip pattern :wink:

[NeveSSL]

Very cool.  Thanks for the reply.  So it's pretty much change, test, change, test, etc. until it comes out the right size?  Should I then convert it to PDF?

By chip, you mean IC I assume?

Thanks again!

Brandon

[RedHouse]

Many picture programs will allow you to set the desired size when printing, for instance Photoshop will print a image to the desired size independant of the picture size, Corel and Freehand do also, maybe Paint Shop Pro does by now.

[sir_modulus]

Just cut the circuit board outa the large picture, and paste it into some graphics program. Then resize it to the dimensions it said on the orig picture...just my $0.02

Cheers,

Nish

[NeveSSL]

Thanks for the tips guys.  I suppose it will be a trial and error thing.    

Brandon

[markr04]

It doesn't have to be trial and error, that's why he provides the ruler as part of the PCB image. How to resize in this fashion is not easily explained with words alone, so I made a tutorial for you. This was done in Photoshop, but there are freeware apps that can do it too, I'm sure:

1. Open the image. Note the actual image length... the PCB is about 9 1/2"!! The supplied ruler shows the length to be 2 3/10". Note: he uses 1/10" intervals, not the 1/8" we're used to seeing. That's okay, because we have to enter decimal places anyway.




2. What I've done next is copy exactly around the outline of the PCB and pasted it in a new document.




3. Next we're going to resize the image. Image>Image Size (in Photoshop). Because "constrain proportions" is ticked, I only need to input one dimension of the design. I'll put in the width (2.3") and Photoshop will automatically reduce height by the correct ratio.




4. Now it's sized correctly. Note that Photoshop's default ruler is 1/8" intervals, so comparing intervals alone won't look right. The image is correctly sized though. Printing this will put one PCB in the middle of your paper.




5. Create a new document. I don't go bigger than 8x10 because most printers can't print to the edges anyway. Paste a few of those suckers in the document. You're done.






Take care,
Mark


Maybe this oughtta go in the Wiki too.

[RedHouse]

markr04,

Now show 'em how to set the print size. You don't have to size the image itself in Photoshop, you can just go to the print setup dialog and set the print size.

[markr04]

The reason that can't be done here is because we don't know the total size of the image. We only know that the outlined area is 2.3" wide. Trying to resize at the printing stage alone takes him back to trial and error.

There may be a thousand members here, and a thousand ideas on how to do this. This is one way...  

[NeveSSL]

Hey Mark!  Thanks SOOOOOOO much for the tutorial.  I think I've got an older version of photoshop lying around somewhere that I may be able to use.  I'll have to dig it up and see what I can do.  My parts won't be here until next week, but the earlier the start I get on this, the better.    Thanks again!

Brandon

[Pushtone]

Hey markr04 your making this way to complicated.:?

All you have to do is set the dot per inch resolution to 300dpi. Done.

Here's the right and easy way.

Photoshop:

Image Size command
Turn off "Resample Image"
Change from 72 dpi to 300 dpi.
Click OK
Print
Take a ruler to it.
Perfection.

Just tried it (again) with the GGG BSIAB2 gif to be sure. It works.

[markr04]

The resolution makes sense, Pushtone. How did you know the correct resolution was 300dpi though?

[Pushtone]

300dpi is the most common dpi setting for desktop publishing.

Anything over 300 increases the file size without offering any better print quality with laser printers.

There are some "art" magazines and posters that are printed at 600dpi but that requires a special offset press.

This method is for GGG gifs. If the PCB layout is in a PDF (like Tonepad) it should already be setup right in the PDF document. With PDF the important thing is to make sure the document is not resized by "shrink to fit" command in the print dialog box.

Markr04's tutorial is totaly valid if you want to isolate the PCB layout out of the PDF so you can get more than one printed at one time.

For the Tonepad PDF I make a screen capture and then follow Markr04 instructions. This is want I do for PDFs
1. Open the PDF.
2. Zoom in on the PCB layout so it fills as much of the screen as possible.
3. Make a screen capture. On the PC (WinXP) you just press the Print screen button. The screen image is now in the computers clipboard. Can anyone speakup for the Mac on screen captures?
4. Open Photoshop or other image editing program.
5. In Photoshop: New document command. Photoshop will automaticaly make the new document the same size as what ever is in the clipboard. In my case its 1024 x 768.
6. Paste command. The screen cap is now in the document.
7. Crop the image tightly to the edge of the PCB layout.
8. Do the image size thing to 300dpi described above. Remember to turn off "Resample image" and change from 72 to 300 dpi.
9. Now use Photoshops rulers and the scale tool to get the PCB layout to the right size as per Markr04 instruction.
10. Print and take a ruller to it. Tweak if nessasary.

[mojotron]

300dpi is the most common dpi setting for desktop publishing.
....

What I do is really, really simple to do this. I just open up Microsoft Word, Insert from file (using the jpg/bmp/gif) and size as per the ruler in word. I typically will set this up to do a whole sheet at a time as above, but it works just as well for a single image at a time.  

[markr04]

Thanks for your tutorial, Pushtone. I also didn't know the 300dpi and laser printer rule before now.

3. Make a screen capture. On the PC (WinXP) you just press the Print screen button. The screen image is now in the computers clipboard. Can anyone speakup for the Mac on screen captures?

With OS X, we have built-in capture finally:

Shift + Command + 3
   Takes a screen capture of your entire screen
   Saves it to your desktop as a file named Picture 1.

Shift + Command + 4
   Lets you draw a selection around the area you want captured.
   The captured image is saved to your desktop as a file named Picture 1.

Shift + Command + 4
   Select an area to capture.
   It saves the selected area into memory, so you can then paste it where you want.

Command + V for Paste.
   Open the app where you want to paste the selected area and paste it using the above paste command.

Shift + Command + 4 + Spacebar.
   Captures a particular window
   A camera icon will appear and you can click on the Window you want to capture.

With OS 9 and earlier, you need an app like Snapz or something similar.