Create artwork that needs to have really big size

[hatredkeys]

Hey all,

A friend of mine is creating the artwork for my band in Photoshop.
We need this artwork for our CD but also for big banners that will be placed on stage.
These banners will be around 4 meters wide and 3 meters in height.
The problem is that when my friend works with this big sizes his computer is tripping and shuts photoshop off.

What I'm wondering is how can he create this artwork in a small size but when we need it in 4x3 meters make it bigger but still contain the same quality.

I was looking for a way to conver a photoshop design to illustrator ( for vector ) but most of my friends and teachers say that It's impossible to transfer it perfectly.

Hope that my question is clear to you all

Greetings
Dennis

 

[ALB68]

Dennis,
If your artwork is all illustration without bitmap images, it should be created in a vector based program in the beginning. Photoshop is just what it's name implies..a program to work with photos and images, not for creation of infinitely sized graphics. However, you can create nice work in Photoshop and export it to Illustrator, but to convert to vector, it would have to be traced. I personally am not a big fan of Illustrator, I use Corel Draw mostly for my vectors. I do, many times, create things in Photoshop, save as a PSD and import into Corel. I find the quality of my traced images made from a PSD work quite well. Photoshop allows me more control over my colors etc, but I like certain features of Corel, such as fitting text to a path and resizing. Once your work is a vector, then the sizing is not an issue.

 

[hatredkeys]

Hey ALB68,

Thank you so much for your reply.
So your advice is that the guy working on our artwork should (preferable) make it in Corel Draw.
Otherwise he should trace the artwork. Does tracing ask much from in Corel Draw?
Sometimes i trace images in illustrator but its to much details and my illustrator crashes.
Since this artwork is going to have alot of details.

Greetings
Dennis

 

[ALB68]

To recap my answer. If you intend to make a large sign or banner it should be designed in a vector based software. The main ones are Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw and some others. Inkscape is one that is a free download and does a good job. Serif in the UK has one called Draw Plus. Any of these programs create artwork using mathematical calculations and not pixels as programs such as Photoshop. If quality is to be maintained, the artwork should be created as vectors and can actually be created on screen at the actual size it is going to be output. It can also, be created in a smaller size to save computer resources, but must be and can be resized for output without any loss in quality.
On the other hand, artwork produced in a program such as Photoshop is pixel based. Pixels are tiny building blocks of color information which in combination produce and image when viewed as a whole. Yes, you can produce a banner or sign in Photoshop, but your going to handicap yourself because if you don't create a huge file to output size in the beginning your quality will suffer when upsized unless it is of very high resolution. This is called pixelation and occurs when the pixels are stretched to increase size. In a nutshell, not the best way to approach this in my opinion.
I can't say whether he should trace or not, because I have not seen the work. That of course will work quite well if the components of the work are text etc created in Photoshop and are not imported photos or other bitmap images. I try to avoid tracing photos and other low resolution components if possible. Some of these scans can get very complex with many many curves and you sometimes get unexpected results . If a photo is to be used in this banner or sign, it needs to be of sufficient resolution to make it large enough for use without scanning it. I hope this serves to clarify this further for you.
Merry Xmas!