Photoshop Sizing? Templates for non-standard shaped items?

[SC2022]

Hi everyone!

Im about to enter the world of sublimation (wish me luck) I’ve been researching for months and have all my kit and a batch of blanks to start. Sorted all my clip art, etc. The only one thing I’m now not sure on is how to size the prints for more “complex” blanks. For example, ceramic discs are easy 7cm radius, job done. What about if I want to do a star, or a heart, or an odd shaped blank? Question is are there templates I can download/ purchase for the most common sublimation products, or is it a case of measuring up and drawing up manually?

thanks in advance!!!!

Jen

[Justin]

No! Don't do it! Stay away from Sublimation! Just joking...NO!

You'll probably find folk may be able to help with templates, quick idea, if you have a scanner you scan the product outline and trace quite easily.

Suppliers will often have templates as well.

[webtrekker]

I am a little confused with your question. Are you cutting the paper to match the shape of the object?

Any shape: disc, star, octagon etc just needs a rectangular piece of sublimation paper.with the actual image sized correctly on the paper.

Granted, some items, such a conical latte mugs for example, do need the paper to be cut to the right shape and for these you will need software that will unwrap a truncated cone, or simply wrap a piece of sublimation paper around the mug and eyeball the shape with a pen. You can the cut out this template, scan or photograph it, and import into Photoshop.

Note that many odd-shaped designs such as this will also require you to use Photoshop's 'Warp' tool to fit your image correctly to the template. Smart Objects really help here too. How proficient are you with Photoshop?

[socialgiraffe]

Easyiest way to create a template is to photograph the blank on a black surface, bring that into photoshop, resize to the exact size and hey presto, one blank sorted.

Obviously you need to photograph from a 90 degree angle to get it perfect. But easy as pie


S>

[SC2022]

Hiya - I don’t know how I shape it correctly on the paper if that makes sense? I just wondered if there’s templates that exist already or if I need to literally measure it out and then do that shape in photoshop. Looks like there’s options to do both or scan as others have mentioned I am a total photoshop newbie!!!!

[SC2022]

Thank you, I’d have never thought of that!!

[Paul]

scan it and trace it to the vector. clean it up and add extra bleed. done