Share your Feedback: New Illuminated Signs!

[James]

Creators, 

Have you checked out our brand-new product, Illuminated signs? Well, what are you waiting for? Head on over to Creator News to bask in the Glory of this new product and feel free to share any feedback once you have had time to design a sign! 

[igiftcenter]

Just an observation from a photographer point of view: if they had just tilted the clock slightly vertically to the top protruded out a little the lights that are reflecting might have been avoided... maybe 🙂 

But it's a cool product and I want one for my office... the mind is racing with ideas

[KiniArt]

I actually love that there’s a white ring of light visible from the edges. But the white I can see that looks like a failure of the zazzle Designer but is actually just a defect in the side-angle mock-up image template is this sliver of white that I cannot get rid of regardless of using the “fill” option or surpassing the ‘fill” option: 

Mock-up image defect that may dissuade Buyer’s

[Fiorenzo]

Oh, sorry. misunderstood you. Yes, now I can see it, too. Checked it and yes, it's a preview issue, not on our end. Be careful when you use the fill tool for backgrounds - you need to fill on the small round shape or some shapes aren't filled when you switch between them. See the comment I wrote in that regard. P.S. I'll write a separate reply addressing the faded previews.

[James]

@KiniArt  thanks for this. I have passed this on to be reviewed.  

[Wildart]

to add gradients to text, one would need to create the text in an editing programe, not within the zazz design area, and far as I can see playing with my first design(not yet completed) one needs a light text on a dark background, and a darker text on a light one(highcontrast in other words). So I cannot see the point of a lot of work prior to uploading designs, just make them high contrast. My 2 cents worth.

[Wildart]

to clarify, I mean if you have a light background color, use a dark image/text on top, and vice versa 🙂

[Fiorenzo]

One last (hopefully) "rant": the "lights off" preview (A) is too faded. The designs on the other ones are a tad faded, too, but it's acceptable. See the difference between the original (in designer view) and the previews. I'm certain, the print will look more like the original than the lighter previews.

Did a quick test lowering the gamma value to 0.8 on preview (A):

 Thanks!

[Barbara]

The faded problem exists with a number of products, but not all. I've often suspected the actual posters have more intense color than what's seen on the product pages. Why some products and not others?

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[Fiorenzo]

I'm 100% sure, posters look perfect, as most other products that aren't on fabric or other critical materials. Until now I got great feedback but no images yet. I have customer images of cards, though, and they are flawless and extremely close to my originals. Same with blankets, pillows, totes, and some other products.

The quality of the previews differs, often even from the same product. It has to do with the attempts to add textures, shades, and lights, which are basically semi-transparent layers put on the preview itself. That's why white on posters and cards often looks dirty/greyish. The problem here is that blend modes such as "screen" most certainly aren't supported by the tool, so a white background with some greyish or black shades and textures on it put on an image with let's say 10 or 20% transparency will make the colors of that underlying image look washed out. Even with blend modes like screen and highlight or multiply you need to find the right balance or it will look bad. Usually, I add a soft light image duplicate on top to get some contrast back that I lost before (often less saturated and around 50% transparency).

[Barbara]

All I can say is that some of the images look the way the world looked to me before I had cataract surgery. 😀

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[orientcourt]

🙄😂🤣

[Barbara]

The description doesn't mention lumens, which might give a clue to how much light is thrown by the signs. Light thrown will, of course, vary with the image, but a sign photographed in a lighted room and then in a room with no lights other than the sign would help. Customers might want to see this too when making a decision.

Colorwash's Home

[chuamishael]

Do people buy this illuminated signs here in Zazzle? anyone successfully sold this product yet?

[chuamishael]

i have questions regarding this product.  
1. the text and the print letter itself doesn't light, correct?
2. so if someone use a text with lighting effect. it only becomes an illusion?
3. does the background lights? if so, if I put a black background. then I completely cover the lights.......
I haven't bought this product before.. and somebody has to do a demonstration live. I need a video on this product.

[chuamishael]

How about I get your feedback instead? how's my humble design? 🙂

this one is dark....

this one is bright.....

[Barbara]

All three of your versions work. It's simply a matter of what kind of effect you're looking for. The first one (because of brighter colors) has a somewhat neon effect, the second (because darker colors are used) is more like backlit signs, and the third uses light and bright colors and so will light up its surroundings much more than the first two.

Light colors let more light through, dark colors let through less. It's as simple as that. To see the relative brightness of colors, switch them to grayscale. Doing this will help you gauge how much the various colors in your sign will glow.

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[Barbara]

I've been assuming our design is on a surface that's translucent white, so I'm wondering if any white in our design is printed or not. Anyone know?

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[Fiorenzo]

I have googled a little bit about backlit printing. Apparently, the designs get printed either on white translucent vinyl or on clear vinyl that gets then applied to a matte or translucent white surface. Basically like the vinyl stickers. I'm 99.99% sure, white is not printed. For us, it makes no difference. Unlike shirts that can come in several colors or transparent glasses with white underlayer inks, the designs on the signs are placed on a white surface, so we don't have to mess with transparent PNG for cut-out objects to prevent the printing of white rectangles around these. JPG will do just fine.

The HD printing permits high-resolution prints up to 300 dpi, the sign sizes go from 15" to 23", and the sign is looked at from a distance. In terms of resolution, I would say that you can start at 150 dpi @ 23" for neat results. 300 dpi would be overkill. In numbers, I would say starting at rounded 3500 pixels square (which can cover rounds and rectangular). This results in approx 150 dpi for 23" size (round and large rect.), approx 230 dpi for the 15" round, and 190 dpi for the 18x15" rectangular. More than enough to get perfect results. Edit: To be 100% safe you can go with 200 dpi @ 23", or 4600 pixels, which will result in 306 dpi @ 15".

[Barbara]

Thanks, Fio. I wish Zazzle would give us that kind of info with their products.

Round pixels? I looked it up and didn't understand a word of it.

Anything I create is 300ppi because I've set it as a default. What I've found when comparing file sizes is that there's no difference between, say, 150ppi and 300ppi. I've always assumed Zazzle sets the dpi, not ppi, when they're printing dependent on the product, which means we can't change their process.

Colorwash's Home

[Fiorenzo]

At "rounded" 3500 pixels means it's a rounded value (instead of saying e.g. 3449).

DPI and PPI signify the exact same in that context (creating graphics for printing), not to confound with printer resolution DPI that can exceed values of 2400 in offset printing.

Zazzle's designer tool is to compare with graphic software, where you put various objects together to a final look that will then be converted into a print file with an appropriate resolution depending on the printer's technology and resolution capacity. An image that you create at 300 DPI/PPI and you then enlarge or make smaller within the tool gets its PPI resized accordingly. You need to use the DPI/PPI value just to determine how tall your image must be in physical pixels to meet the minimum requirements for a specific size in inches. I personally suggest to work in physical pixels, much easier to handle. In that case it's irrelevant at what number you set your DPI/PPI (1 or 10000, it's the exact same).

In this specific case, the physical max size of the product is 23", and the HD printing itself could possibly support 300 DPI, so the max image size in best printable quality would be 23" x 300 DPI/PPI = 6900 pixels. Which is pretty large. At this object size, 150 DPI/PPI would be more than enough for a perfect print result, which will then result in an image size of 23" x 150 DPI = 3450 pixels, much better to handle and create.

[Barbara]

And there I was trying to imagine fitting a square pixel into a round hole. LOL

My admittedly petty little quibble is that we can't have dots per inch on our monitors, so let the printers do their thing while we computer designers do ours. Yes, definitely petty, I know.

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[Fiorenzo]

LOL, you always manage to make me smile 😂

You should know better, tho, being an old Methuselah like me and having worked in that dept., in the older days bitmap resolution was pretty commonly referred to as DPI, at least in the Windows world. Only later more and more software switched to PPI. So basically, the terms are interchangeable, and every graphic designer and printer professional can well differentiate. UNLESS they're p e t t y 😂

Have a peaceful Easter Sunday and Monday, running to the rescues now before it gets darker. So long!

[Barbara]

I suspect it depends on one's beginnings. Mine were back in the very beginning of digital photography where we wouldn't think of referring to ppi as dpi. Pixels were king. The cameras for the common folk were in their infancy and printers had hardly even been born yet. Dpi wasn't something we looked for in a digital camera; rather, it was in printers.

So there.

Colorwash's Home

[Barbara]

You know what I wish? I wish the signs also came in a white frame (with white cord). When creating a design with mainly light colors, the black frame is a bit like a sore thumb.

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