Emerald City ...and a technical question!

[gmontag451]

This amazing Wizard of Oz castle was a Christmas gift from my wife. It's a 1978 Summer Weekly Reader kit, including the model and a record LP.

This is actually a scanned copy, printed at about 80% of the original size. I've spent a couple weeks cleaning it up in Photoshop. The original is huge, so rather than trying to piece together sheets of card stock, I shrunk it to fit on 11"x17" paper. It's not quite done, but I wanted to test the fit before I went any further.

Which brings me to a technical question: I'd like to preserve the pieces in a PDf, but I'm not sure how to approach it.

- What PPI, dimensions, file size, etc. should I use to balance file size and quality? Should I make a PDF or just a folder of JPGs?

- The model is difficult to cut out without a guide, and I'd like to add an overlay of cut and fold lines. I've seen models offered both with and without cut lines; is there really a demand for this? I have Photoshop and Illustrator, which is best for this?

- I'm considering altering parts of the original that don't quite fit, or which could look a little more polished on the edges. I know I can do what I want, and that it isn't an historically important model or something, but do modelers prefer to leave a model as-is when preserving?

Thanks for any advice!
Michael Bean

[Rubenandres77]

Very nice model! I had never seen it.

There is no established set of rules when it comes to preparing a file for preservation.

When I've done this to preserve kits for my personal use, I prepare the document at 11X17 inches, 600 dpi. I save it as JPG or TIFF file, and create the PDF from them. That resolution allows me to edit the file if needed without much problem. Sometimes I need to re-create the layout of the pages, and re-arrange parts to make everything fit.

JPG, TIFF, or BMP can be your source file. But I've found it is easier to assemble a PDF to take to the printer shop when dealing with files I can't print at home. They just open the pdf and hit print. Faster than opening each separate jpg.

Some people are happy working at 300 dpi, and I've heard of more extreme people that prefer even much higher dpi (1200 upward). It all depends on how much microscopic details you wish to preserve, and how big you will print afterwards. I consider more than 600 dpi to be a waste of time and drive space. In the end, if the printer and paper are not capable of physically preserving such detail, it is useless.

File size depends on several factors. I've found a single page in JPG can weight as much as 80 Mb or more each. Or if you play a bit with the settings you can reduce that size to more portable sizes without compromising much of the quality. If you have enough space (and in this days hard drives tend to be bigger everyday) then there are no worries.

I tend to save a copy of the untouched files.
And if I find fit issues I correct them in another digital copy so I can have both.

Fold and cut indications are always welcome. I tend to use vector programs to work with the lineart, as rasterizing lines in a bitmap software may render pixelated lines.

All that and more can be done when it is for your own personal enjoyment and done as preservation of your own files. There are no written policies or rules or punishments if you do one thing or another. As long as you feel comfortable with your files, there's nothing else.

But there may be issues if you wish to distribute it publicly.
You better check that.
It is old, but not so old. Some company may still have the copyright on it.
So be careful in that respect.


Regards,

[Vermin_King]

That is truly delightful.

I usually scan to png, it seems to leave fewer artifacts than jpg or bmp. Since I usually reduce, not enlarge, 300 dpi is good for what I do.

What size is the original printed on? Is it letter, A4 or something else?

[gmontag451]

Thank you both for the advice! (Sorry I took so long to respond! It's been busy here.) When I'm done creating the pdf, I'll post a link here. It won't be right away though, I've got too many other things at the moment, and need to brush up on how to use Illustrator.

To answer your question Vermin King, the original is printed on different sizes of heavy card stock. The sheets range from 11"x14" to 14"x18.5". The two largest sheets form the background, which is about 22"x18" assembled. It's really very huge! Shrinking them down to 11"x17" makes it not only a more manageable size, but sturdier for regular card stock or heavyweight paper.

[clif52]

Very nice looking build. I've never seen this model either. Would make a nice gift to any Wizard of Oz fan. I wouldn't mind building this one myself. I'm a retired commercial artist/graphic designer and I know how much work you have put into digitally restoring and laying out a PDF of the kit.