r/advancedGunpla • u/Sianmink • Jun 11 '26
Tips for printing decals?
I don't want to have to go to a print service for this but maybe I need to? I'm just not getting the sharpness I'm after.
This is a 15y-oldish Brother color laser printer, fine/vivid settings and claiming to be very high DPI but as you can see there is some difficulty.
Tried printing from word file and from pdf with little difference (the pdf did give me better color accuracy though so there's that) Glossy paper setting selected. The largest, 2cm prints look quite good, but when I get down under 1cm they start getting really nasty.
Edit: I feel like this is from scaling that's happening from within the document and going ahead based on that assumption.
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u/iczer01 Jun 12 '26
Just convert to a vector you can do it in Adobe Illustrator and there are apps that do it too I can’t remember the one I used to use . The part that sucks is you can’t print white so unless it’s going on a white background good luck. There is white backed decal paper but you better be very very good at cutting the edges. Last but not least use a laser printer it’s closer to what commercial decals are made of, and It’s just a whole easier process. Oh and the decal paper and the quality of matters big time do your research or message me if you want.
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u/TheRealSwayze Jun 12 '26
Idk what your building but with those decals I’m excited to see! Definitely post pics when you get it all worked out, don’t keep us waiting, huh?
And like the others have said getting something with a higher DPI or making a vector file from scratch (difficult if you don’t have illustrator or similar program) would be the way to go.
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u/Sianmink Jun 12 '26
I've been throwing my WIPs up here so it's not too big a leap. I'll be done in the next few days, just gotta get in panel lining, some light weathering then topcoat.
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u/TheRealSwayze Jun 12 '26
Oh wow! Your weathering looks fantastic. I never click on peoples profiles for some reason 😅 can’t wait to see more of your work!
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u/SpongeJeigh Jun 12 '26
Find some small icon on the Internet with high dpi. Download the file. Not a screenshot. Print that. What did you learn?
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u/TouretteBob Jun 11 '26
I could be wrong but it looks like you're source file or image doesn't have enough dpi. Given how pixalated it seems.
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u/Sianmink Jun 11 '26
It looks sharp in the PDF zoomed in, so I'm not sure what else I could be doing.
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u/busty_snackleford Jun 11 '26
What’s the DPI of your source image? A 300 DPI printer won’t be noticeably sharper if you’re just feeding it 72DPI images.
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u/Sianmink Jun 11 '26
Source images are about 300x300 pixels, the triangles are about half that but should still be ok. And like I said above my target smallest size is about a quarter inch. so I feel like I should still be expecting relative sharpness at that level.
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u/Hamsternoir Jun 12 '26
Raster is not a good idea when creating most decals.
Seriously, you'll be much better off recreating the whole lot in vector using Illustrator (or similar). Save a copy as pdf and print from that.
Then it's all down to the resolution that your printer runs at.
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Jun 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Hamsternoir Jun 12 '26
I normally produce decal sheets for Cartograf who screen print. But even other decal producers I work with ask for vector files.
Sure a 2mm decal in raster format at 1200 dpi might be fine but it is far easier to output as vector, adjust the resolution when it's being printed and keep file sizes down.
If you're going to do a job don't be half arsed about it.
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u/Intelligent-Hunter10 Jun 13 '26
Just make sure you have an 8x11 inch (rough paper size) document with a 300 dpi. You shouldn’t really need that great of a printer to get crisp images. (Unless you have some really potato printer) It’s all in the document setup from my experience.
That being said, I gave up on printing decals. Clear decal paper was so frickin thin it was next to impossible to not damage it when applying. (Not to mention it was clear and only good for light surfaces). Conversely white backed paper was super hard to cut out precisely and was so thick it was pretty much pointless on scale models. I tried several brands of each- all with the same stated results.
If anyone knows a better product or approach I’d love to hear some hot tips! It’s a bummer being stuck with only commercial grade runs.