Cards, files, Inkscape and Scribus

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Cards, files, Inkscape and Scribus

Post by Q_x » Sun Oct 03, 2010 08:46

We've been discussing this subject recently... Since nothing new comes to my head, I'll try to explain the problem and ask for your thoughts and advices.
The question is about workflow really.

Problem: having good looking cards.

Problem details:
Inkscape does not handle some things correctly:
*It has narrow options palette when exporting to PDF (this makes hard times when printing on pro level)
*It has no options for making drop-caps and other text adjustments (this makes the text has to be separated into few pieces, those it makes harder to edit the text afterwards).

Solution proposed:
I'd suggest to use Scribus for the final part of card creation.

Pros:
*Better PDF/bitmap export handling (look at the attachment, sorry its in Polish, but I think you'll get the point), resulting in higher quality of printouts and more cheap printing solutions available.
*Better text handling. Manual letter spacing, lots of tweaks are possible to make some good typography. Styles in text will also make text appearance manipulation easier both for "paragraphs" and "special characters" (like the bigger, dropped initial letter could have its font changed and typesetting whole card will take just a few clicks). This, unlike in Inkscape, won't break text into pieces.
*Better color management, true CMYK workflow. This can result in some really good-looking solutions, like really fruity colorful stuff going on and pro looking "rich black" and overprints.
*Better link support/resource management. Try to open all inkscape files we have and you will know what I mean.
*Multipage documents - it may be more and more important with time
Drawbacks:
*It needs more labour to do the cards, like 15-45 minutes for a card (depending on how fast one works, how many elements needs a card and such), it adds whole stage to workflow.
*It won't handle some of the .svg files and effects, this will result in some extra work to prepare things that can't be exported straight from Inkscape. Brightness/contrast/hue/saturation changes - no problem, with blur you can even make shadow with this. But this works for bitmaps only (letters have shadow as an option elsewhere).
Consequences:
* It will change the way that cards are made: from making it in Inkscape only to make (or not) the initial design in Inkscape and (re)create it later in Scribus. Exporting whole card as a bitmap and pasting it into Scribus for PDF export is not an option for any "raster-type" printing device, like laser printers, at least most contrasting text and vector art should be imported into Scribus in vector form.
*The cards will have text laid out better.
*It will be hard to change cards layout, but easier to edit text.
*It will result in more flexibility with PDF output.
*It will need some effort to make all the things needed for Scribus (porting card templates from what is in Inkscape /svg files now).

What are your thoughts on this? Am I understandable? Is it all worth the effort?
Attachments
Dokument-1-strona001.png
Scribus shadowing
Untitled.jpg
comparison of PDF export options in Inkscape and Scribus
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Re: Cards, files, Inkscape and Scribus

Post by Q_x » Sun Oct 03, 2010 17:54

Just to keep you up to date. We've been chatting all day with snowdrop. And here are some remarkable things to keep in mind:

Inkscape has all cool features we need for our software to have from the design side. Typography is a little bit crippled, but we can handle this in Inkscape or do it elsewhere and import it into Inkscape. The only really blocking issue is the inability to export high quality CMYK PDFs with the set of basic features (black preserved as black, using overprints and rich black).
This feature, however seems to be nowhere in roadmaps or plans. Its even worse, as the creators openly announced they will not make it possible, as developing prepress software (they call CMYK support this way) is not planned. Dunno why not. Is it that hard, guys?
I can't say how bad I feel about it. The other thing is exporting vector artwork from Inkscape is a PITA too - despite hours of exercises we have found no way that does the trick for our cards and Scribus. I will waste some more time, why not, life is a road to nowhere anyway.

There are two important pieces of free software that are able to produce valid CMYK output. This are: Scribus and Gimp (with plugin), both have their bright and dark sides. We can use both, but ideally we'd use neither.

Thing worth mentioning:
Configuring soft-proofing (seeing cards "in CMYK ") under Inkscape:
http://www.craig-russell.co.uk/configur ... ntu-linux/

This screencast more or less shows how deep in the dung we are immersed ATM:
http://screencasters.heathenx.org/episode-106/#comments
Short conclusion of this longer screencast: this guy's advices are excellent, just not working for us. No vector CMYK is allowed in FLOSS world yet. But this is usable, legit set of advices, and we can use it. It will just not result in pro-grade printouts.
Edit: the file CMYKTool produced for this guy will show kinda funny after printing. You cannot rely on dummy "profile to profile" conversion, at least correct black elements afterwards.
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Re: Cards, files, Inkscape and Scribus

Post by Q_x » Mon Oct 04, 2010 09:44

Thoughts for this morning:

Separate+ plugin works better than CMYKTool on the screencast - GIMP makes possible to adjust some things for example.

Two workable solutions were in my head today after I woke up:

1. Using Inkscape for design and provide instructions how to prepare CMYK TIFFs with Separate +
Good: Easy approach, no extra work needed on our side
Evil: Results in text transformed to bitmap, which is "unprofessional" (read: looks noobish)

2. Using Inkscape to provide some of the work in bitmap form, add some elements (text) in Scribus.
Good: Result in most important vectors (text) still being vectorized, text on cards will be in single thread, we can use multipage documents, making printing marks will be easier, adds many possibilities of output files
Evil: Adds a stage to the workflow (extra software to manage, extra files to link it inside scribus, extra mess to take care of in general, no ready-to-take Inkscape files).
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Re: Cards, files, Inkscape and Scribus

Post by Q_x » Sun Oct 24, 2010 12:10

Update:
The template is pretty much working in its hardest part.
Despite what the Scribus team proposes to avoid their lack of coding hours (http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Advanced_Drop_Caps ), I was able to keep custom-sized Initial (which is not a drop-cap anymore) with all the text in single text frame.
This leads to breaking lines by hand, which is not professional, but we can make use of this issue to work for us anyways.

As always, custom cards will need custom lettering, so there is only like 80% of things done in styles, and 20% still needs one's hand, eye and attention, but this is how the world works.

So quick sum how the lettering will work for us:
Create an empty page
make a textbox
paste/flow text in a textbox
style title, type and cost of the card
style card title
style an initial with a character style
repair the second line of the text if it starts in a bad place (too big/too small indentation)
break all following lines by hand, with enter key
tweak text size if needed
correct initial size if needed, re-break the lines if needed
repair the second line of text if there is something to repair there

There are still hosts of things lacking, but you all can watch what I've done
Attachments
event card template.zip
(521.33KiB)Downloaded 333 times
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Re: Cards, files, Inkscape and Scribus

Post by Q_x » Tue Oct 26, 2010 12:47

Well, I think I'll make a stop here and ask what you all think about this.
Here is a event card template, stuffed with some ad-hockery.
Known severe problems for now are:

The shadow is not blurred in PDF. Dunno if it is a known bug or not, I dropped a line to the Scribus team (this is my second bug posted there, I have no idea if someone reads this: http://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=9408 and http://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=9440 - you can always help with that).
To avoid that we can prepare a shadow as a separate file. It won't be hard, nor heavy.

Known issues are:
The text is hard to select sometimes, it is best to edit in internal editor, not on screen.

Todos:
The colours of card description text are still not cool.
Working with the template needs longer description.
Need a quick way to place all the boxes, empty, on a new page
Version information (I'll make this by importing straight from Inkscape or bitmap, its trivial anyways)

Remarks:
The card I made looks chaotic.
Attachments
event card template.png
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Re: Cards, files, Inkscape and Scribus

Post by snowdrop » Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:35

Q_x wrote:The shadow is not blurred in PDF.
My own experience is that PDF most often looks crap, but that it's strength is when it's being printed. Many times I've seen it look all wrong in the document, but perfect when printed from the same document. Have you tried printing it? Does it still look wrong?

And why do we want it as a PDF? Why not just deliver the raster images in hires? Or a raster A4 with them?
To avoid that we can prepare a shadow as a separate file. It won't be hard, nor heavy.
Exactly which shadow(s) are you referring to?

The colours of card description text are still not cool.
The drop cap should be the same colour as the rest of the card text.

Btw: "Card description" is called "Card text" by the industry (which is kind of lame since description fits better..)

And yeah, agree it needs some more fine tuning. Maybe some shade darker? (But not 100% black..or...hrm... I think it looks too intrusive when being pure black, It breaks the template coherency when it comes to the colours... Don't know how to explain it in a good way....)

Version information (I'll make this by importing straight from Inkscape or bitmap, its trivial anyways)
'

I don't follow: What will you import from ink? Version info = the green field at the bottom, which you have included in this post? (Where info like "wtactics.org x.y.z" is displayed)
Remarks:
The card I made looks chaotic.
Heheh.. indeed it does :P When doing them for real we must never put text in so narrow space.. meaning, most of the time the top 20 - 30% of the card will not have any raster card art work in it since that space is reserved for the card text.

Other stuff:

- Bottom corners look less "rounded" than the top ones.

- Is the shadow of the card raster art done with Scribus, or is the shadow integrated into the vector file? Also, can the shadow strength etc be manipulated?

- The gold cost number is probably too big and should be some shrunk, a little.
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Re: Cards, files, Inkscape and Scribus

Post by Q_x » Wed Oct 27, 2010 13:37

snowdrop wrote:
Q_x wrote:The shadow is not blurred in PDF.
My own experience is that PDF most often looks crap, but that it's strength is when it's being printed. Many times I've seen it look all wrong in the document, but perfect when printed from the same document. Have you tried printing it? Does it still look wrong?
I was using 8.1.3 Acrobat Reader - which is supposed to provide a reliable display. But I can do even more than just watching/printing it - I have printed it into bitmap, take look at this.
event card template.png
snowdrop wrote: And why do we want it as a PDF? Why not just deliver the raster images in hires? Or a raster A4 with them?
If this would result in a high quality of printout, vector graphics would never be as popular as it is. I care of text mostly - all the rest can go a little bit fuzzy and still look good
snowdrop wrote:
To avoid that we can prepare a shadow as a separate file. It won't be hard, nor heavy.
Exactly which shadow(s) are you referring to?
Shadow under artwork (illustration or portrait).
snowdrop wrote:
The colours of card description text are still not cool.
The drop cap should be the same colour as the rest of the card text.

Btw: "Card description" is called "Card text" by the industry (which is kind of lame since description fits better..)

And yeah, agree it needs some more fine tuning. Maybe some shade darker? (But not 100% black..or...hrm... I think it looks too intrusive when being pure black, It breaks the template coherency when it comes to the colours... Don't know how to explain it in a good way....)
I found pitch black to be pretty cool with small letters. But the initial looks really heavy with it. This is why I introduced a different colour to that. In fact, I'm thinking if it won't look cooler to have another font for it - something like this would suit gaian cards:
http://openfontlibrary.org/files/psb6m/215
http://openfontlibrary.org/files/Daniel_J/97
http://openfontlibrary.org/files/ahyangyi/88
Looks like they have changed something, huge part of fonts is missing in OFL, they are migrating currently. But I'm also sure we will find nice fonts that will suit any faction we would have.

With small letters - you will find they really don't have a "colour", usually they are printed in warm black or brown, with very little paint. Perception works like this when the letters are about 9pt or smaller - our eye has a metabolic mechanism that makes black things sharpened on contrasting background, it works little bit like Eberhard effect does in silver photography.
Or just take an old book (with pages that are creamy yellow), good scanner, and scan it in hi res - the letters will be not pure black when enlarged, usually they appear way lighter. If we'd stick to browny "old parchment" look, black may be tolerable.
But, seeking for solutions - I'd rather avoid transparent letters in this case. But, since the letters have to have a colour anyway - will deep brown work for you? Deep emerald green? 80% black? What are your preferences?
snowdrop wrote:
Version information (I'll make this by importing straight from Inkscape or bitmap, its trivial anyways)
'

I don't follow: What will you import from ink? Version info = the green field at the bottom, which you have included in this post? (Where info like "wtactics.org x.y.z" is displayed)
aye, info at the bottom line.
snowdrop wrote: - Is the shadow of the card raster art done with Scribus, or is the shadow integrated into the vector file? Also, can the shadow strength etc be manipulated?
The art shadow was on my mind. It is done in Scribus, and all the parameters are easy to tweak: intensity, placement, scale and blur amount. I use now a set of filters bundled inside Scribus, there is not additional file for a shadow (for now).


I'll take care for all the things you've pointed :).
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Re: Cards, files, Inkscape and Scribus

Post by Q_x » Fri Oct 29, 2010 15:30

Just to reply my own post - another hour of squeezing the template has passed.
I hope I finally achieved a final look desired for the project.

I will have to make some major cleaning to make the file actually easy to work with, but who really cares - it looks good.

What is inside the template makes a problem on its own. Manipulating things inside graphic frame is non-intuitive and hardly possible, as well as doing anything with anything but the topmost object. But I guess this are my pains. For now.
Attachments
event card template-strona001.png
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Re: Cards, files, Inkscape and Scribus

Post by snowdrop » Fri Oct 29, 2010 19:06

http://chaosrealm.net/wtactics/files/pi ... t_092.jpeg
There's the differences. =)

- Some glitches in the SVG
- Some funny stuff with the green-fades
- Gold font size should be smaller
- Move up icon closer to edge, & maybe use bleed if it's about cutting? (keep in mind we want same files to be able to dump finished cads for the digital version as well)

Edit: Something about that D is wrong... i think it's to small. = P Also, biggest font in card text should be 12? and footer text needs to be shrunk somewhat.
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Re: Cards, files, Inkscape and Scribus

Post by Q_x » Sun Oct 31, 2010 08:12

Inkscape is a liar. It lies about the font sized. I see the title/type font there to be 14 pt tall, it looks like 11 to me... Plus some effects don't copy across documents (but object that should carry it does...).

So I exported things from Rebels.svg straight to bitmap form. I did a minor adjustment of two elements (have a competition: which two small things I have changed in a frame of a card template before exporting it to bitmap?)

I have all (or nearly all) of my issues sorted out.

Whats your opinion? Is it OK?

PS. Text description looks to big now, its 12 pt now :/ Thats a biggest uncool thing here that catched my eye.
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event card template.png
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