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Making Custom Decals

First Pass - White

Second Pass - Color

Third Pass - Black

These three artworks combine to created this final image for the A-4E Skyhawk. The ALPS printer prints in passes. By instructing the printer to not eject the paper after the print, it is possible to have it maintain alignment and print additional images in near perfect register.

The first pass prints the white portions of the image, including the areas that are undercoating for the colored areas of the decal page. To help avoid white shadowing around the undercoated markings (caused by minimally missing the register of the color print), I will reduce the white undercoat designs by about one pixel all around there edges. This leaves a one pixel overrun for the color print and usually is all that is needed to eliminate any undesirable white shadowing effect caused from the printing.

The second pass prints the colored portions of the image.

The third and final pass prints the black portions of the image.

The Corel or Adobe art products provide for this separation into component images through a process they term "layering". People I have discussed this process with claim it is cumbersome and prone to problems when trying to track the layers. The decal manufacture that approached me to do work for them no longer uses layering, opting instead to do separate images as I have shown here.