Well I can't spot an 'Introductions' forum area so I'll pop this in here and leave it to the mods to either move or not as they see fit.

So, greetings everyone.
I've been using Inkscape for almost a year now, I'm a scientist by training but a couple of jobs back I started doing design work for the company's literature and did some logos in The GIMP that got voted to be the new header image for one of our divisions. That was a big moment and gave me the bug for graphic design, which I've since studied part-time in the evenings, working with the Adobe suite usually, but always preferring to use the Open Source alternatives when I could.

As time's gone on I've found that I'm using Inkscape more, and doing more illustrative work for various people, including a few cards for friends' businesses, and a fourth place in a design competition to re-brand my home city with a fresh logo last year. That was the turning point when I decided I wanted to go for it in a more decisive way and have started getting information together to set up as an amateur freelancer. As yet, no printer has complained about any of the Inkscape-generated files I've sent them and they've always come out looking great; some encouragement there for anyone else harbouring fears along those lines when it comes to getting the final product made. The PDF-creating feature in recent versions is an absolute boon.

Anyway, hope to be involved here and share what I know as well as learn some new stuff and get some inspiration going. Looking forward to it.

Welcome!
Heres as good a place as any for an intro post.
Look forward to seeing some of you work

Welcome to the forums.

When you supply your files to the printers, you supply them as PDF? They don't care about the colour mode?

Welcome digital_havoc

Actually this is a brand new board in these forums, but I think new member introductions should be appropriate....although I'm not a moderator. I've been participating here for...almost exactly a year! And I can tell you this is a great forum. I'm not sure if I would call myself an artist or not, but somehow I've become interested in computer graphics, and struggle to learn to basics. Yet every message I've posted has been answered, entirely to my satisfaction. And there are some seriously talented artists here, who know Inkscape very, very well, who are only glad for the opportunity to help others. This is one of the best forums I've ever participated in, grapics or otherwise. I'm sure you will thrive here, as an artist!

All best!

microUgly wrote:Welcome to the forums.

When you supply your files to the printers, you supply them as PDF? They don't care about the colour mode?

Well, I've used PDFs for two projects in the last six months and the physical outputs have been better than fine on both occasions, in spite of the PDF limitations. In the instance where I was asked for a CMYK-separated file I exported a 300dpi PNG to GIMP and used a downloadable plugin to create a separated .TIF image. To be honest, I had little idea if I'd done it right but the printer was happy with it and the banners went up at our next conference looking great. It took some engineering on my part to get it done but eventually they were placated once I'd worked out what I was doing and how to provide what was being requested.

The wonderful thing is that it looks like a slow revolution is taking place in the printing industry; file formats that never used to be acceptable are now being taken, and while there's still a long way to go before Open Source software (and the SVG format in particular) takes the frontier line, I feel the momentum is growing.

Let me be clear: I am by no means a full-on professional, just trying to find ways to use the software I love to perform the tasks I want to do, some of which I've had noticed by others.

digital_havoc wrote:The wonderful thing is that it looks like a slow revolution is taking place in the printing industry; file formats that never used to be acceptable are now being taken, and while there's still a long way to go before Open Source software (and the SVG format in particular) takes the frontier line, I feel the momentum is growing.

Which formats are those? Last time I was doing print work the printers insisted on EPS. At the time I thought PDF was, or was becoming, the new standard. I know I prefer it because I have so much confidence that it'll print exactly as I see it.

I actually had a printer print the embedded raster preview from an EPS instead of the actual image once. The guys I had dealt with clearly knew nothing about their trade and started their business because it sounded like a good idea I made them reprint it.

Let me be clear: I am by no means a full-on professional, just trying to find ways to use the software I love to perform the tasks I want to do, some of which I've had noticed by others.

Very few of us here are professionals, including myself. But we appreciate what ever information can be shared

microUgly wrote:Which formats are those? Last time I was doing print work the printers insisted on EPS. At the time I thought PDF was, or was becoming, the new standard. I know I prefer it because I have so much confidence that it'll print exactly as I see it.

Well to name one company, VistaPrint, who advertise copiously and sneak their leaflets into Amazon.co.uk orders these days, accept several of what I think are surprising file formats for home-made designs. Although they're not recommended formats they will accept JPG, PCX, SVG and SVGz, and even images embedded into Word docs!
Obviously there are some serious quality issues associated with lots of these but the very fact that they can be used is a sign of openness that I think is a good thing, and helpful to users of non-industry standard software too.

microUgly wrote:I actually had a printer print the embedded raster preview from an EPS instead of the actual image once. The guys I had dealt with clearly knew nothing about their trade and started their business because it sounded like a good idea I made them reprint it.

Heh heh, the customer is always right.