Photoshop/Illustrator help duplicating a web image for print

Magic Wand? Simple Resize? Other means?

[sonaro]

Hello webmasterworld,

I have been lurking for a few days now and I am blown away with the wealth of information contained within these pages. I haven't had to post any questions yet because so far, all the answers are here! :-)

Anyway, this image is part of the header on a website and the owner would like it to be their header on all printed material as well.

What is the best way to approach duplicating an image like this? Would I use the magic wand or the pen tool or both? Start from scratch with boxes and warp it? If so, how? Should I accept the fact early on that it won't be identical, but the average person wouldn't notice anyway?

Unfortunately I do not have access to anything but this file. I will be using Photoshop and/or Illustrator and I am not that advanced.

Please see URL below for image:

<snip>

Thank you very much!

[edited by: trillianjedi at 12:24 pm (utc) on April 19, 2006]
[edit reason] Please see TOS #13 ;) [/edit]

[limbo]

Hi sonaro

Firstly you should check out the TOS [webmasterworld.com] (no links to URLS) and this welcome message [webmasterworld.com] :)

To best recreate that for print I'd use a vector illustration app like freehand or illustrator. You can use drawing & distort tools + gradients & transparencies to create that effect.

Where was it created in the first place? Photoshop? - Which would be OK but vector is always prefered for branding work so that it can be scaled easily

[monkeythumpa]

That jpeg will probably not look too bad. There is not a ton of detail and the jpeg format is great with gradients. The problem will come at the borders of the white and the blue colors. It will be real fuzzy when viewed on a paper. Also the colors may not come out the way you are expecting. The RGB -> CMYK conversion is not always a good one. Try it, if you are not happy with the results then you are only out a minute of your time, a sheet of paper, and some ink.

If it was me I would redo it at the highest resolution that is reasonable, 1200 dpi or even better, in vector format (.eps) and save it in a safe place. Once you have the high resolution image you can scale it down for print and/or web.

You can always remove resolution but you can never add it.

[sonaro]

Thanks guys. I managed to get it very similar to the original using Illustrator & Photoshop. URL posting wont happen again!

[limbo]

Monkey thumpa - no need to worry about resolution in vector format ;)