Image  and Artwork
Information

Standard Images

We have a huge range of standard images which can be used on our signs, plaques, wheel covers, printed canvases and personalised gifts. Click here for single colour images for use on wood, slate, engraved and cut vinyl signage Click here for full colour images and backgrounds for printed signs

COST OF USING AN IMAGE

Basic Image Cost - can include a standard image from our selection Image Size Printed or Cut Vinyl Engraved Sand Blasted or Lasered Wood Stone or Metal Up to 100mm £12.50 £12.50 100mm - 200mm £12.50 £18.00 200mm - 300mm £12.50 £24.00 Over 300mm £12.50 £28.00   Designer to Find Image- our designers can find a suitable image in most cases   Own Image Cost - including £12 artwork charge for ready to use image Image Size Printed or Cut Vinyl Engraved Sand Blasted or Lasered Wood Stone or Metal Up to 100mm £24.50 £24.50 100mm - 200mm £24.50 £30.00 200mm - 300mm £24.50 £36.00  Over 300mm £24.50 £40.00   Own Image Cost - including £22 artwork charge for conversion to vector file Image Size Printed or Cut Vinyl Engraved Sand Blasted or Lasered Wood Stone or Metal Up to 100mm £34.50 £34.50 100mm - 200mm £34.50 £40.00 200mm - 300mm £34.50 £46.00 Over 300mm £34.50 £50.00

What constitutes a Ready to Use Image?

Single Colour

Single Colour Images for Wood, Stone and Engraved Signs again need to be in the vectorised format created in drawing programs such as Adobe Illustrator or Coral Draw. Click here for more information. If you are unable to send your image in this format, and most people can't, we will send the image to a graphic designer to re-draw @ a cost of £22

Full Colour

Colour photographs should be taken at the high resolution or fine setting on your camera. If you are scanning a photo, scan it in at the high resolution. They are usually sent as tiff, jpg or bitmap images. Check out the size chart at the bottom of the page.

Colour Artwork can be sent as an appropriate size tiff, jpg, gif or png file - see size chart below. Alternatively it should be created as vector artwork in a drawing programs such as Adobe Illustrator or Coral Draw. It allows artwork to be enlarged without any loss of quality. If you do not have suitable colour artwork we can send it to a graphic design to vectorise for you. See the before and after image below. Most images from the internet are low resolution and will need to be vectorised.

Artwork as Sent to Us	Re-created as a vectorised Image

CHECKING THE IMAGE SIZE for Bitmap Images eg photographs
To see if a photograph or artwork image is large enough bring it into your photo software. Look at the image size and you should be able to see how many pixels high and wide the image is.

Height or Length of Printing in Inches	Height or Length of Printing in mm	No. Pixels required
4 Inches	100mm	400 - 600 pixels
6 Inches	150mm	600 - 900 pixels
9 inches	225 mm	900 - 1350 pixels
12 inches	300mm	1200 - 1800 pixels
18 inches	450mm	1800 - 2700 pixels
24 inches	600mm	2400 - 3600 pixels

WHAT IS A BITMAP IMAGE?

Most digital images you see on your computer, phone or ipad are composed of bitmaps. A bitmap is made up of dots or bits, which when you are a reasonable distance from the screen appear as an image. However if you zoom in or enlarge the image it becomes blurry, pixilated or blocky. Typical bitmap image file types are jpg, giff, png and tiff.  If taken from a website they are usually too small to print with any quality.

WHAT IS A VECTOR IMAGE?
	A vector image is is made up of mathematical paths which are defined by magnitude and direction. This kind of image can be enlarged easily without losing quality.

CAN A BITMAP IMAGE BE CONVERTED INTO A VECTOR IMAGE

In most cases - yes, but not at the press of a button! Our graphic designer can usually scan, trace and redraw the artwork and then save it as a vector file. This cost for this is normally £22  This technique cannot be used on photographs or very complicated artwork. However we do have some software which can increase a photograph to about 5 times its original size yet still keep a reasonable quality.

SAVING A VECTOR FILE

Create the file in a drawing program such as Adobi Illustrator or Corel. Save the file as uncompressed. Fonts to be converted to curves. Remove all unwanted layers All strokes or outlines to be converted to objects Overlapping objects which are the same colour must be weld as one. Must be in a PC format. NB Although you can bring in a bitmap file into a drawing program and then save it as a ai or eps file, it will not be converted to a vector file.

COLOUR MATCHING
	Our vinyl printing uses CMYK colours. For artwork with very specific colours you must send us any ready to print artwork in CYMK as opposed to RGB.  If we are designing your artwork you will need to ensure we have the CMYK reference numbers. To be sure the colours are correct we are happy to send out a small vinyl print - just ask us.

More Images

If you can't find anything suitable from all our images - you can subscribe to iCLIPART for a week to download any of their 8 million images. Alternatively for an extra £12 you can ask our designer to find you an appropriate image or look on on shutterstock.com and choose one for us to download.

Hand Painted Images

Finally we do have the option of a local artist hand painting an image. On wooden signs we usually suggest finishing with Coach Kote. On stone signs we sand blast out a panel into which the image is painted. Cost varies but is usually about £45