Transparent Scans

[Chris Black]

I often create "protected" PDF's from PC7 with my signature and P.E. wet-stamp in them for temporary submittal to clients and/or jurisdictional authorities until "official" wet-stamped hard copies can be delivered by hand or snail mail. (Since I am still using a Quad G5 I am relegated to the PC7 ghetto.) I use Adobe Acrobat Pro to provide the "protection" so my stamp and signature (which is actually a font created for me long ago) can not be copied or stolen for other purposes. (Interestingly, my handwritten signature has deteriorated significantly since I originally had the font created, and now I have some difficulty trying to match how I used to sign things from around 15-20 years ago if I want the electronic version to approximately match the official hard copy.) Both my electronic stamp and signature are blue in color to make them look like real ink. I use blue ink on the hard copies as well.

The P.E. stamp I use in these PC7/PDF docs are from a hard copy of my actual stamp scanned in and imported into PC7. Back in the good old days of QuickDraw, I could easily make the white background turn transparent, via those old bitmap modes, so that if the stamp appears over the top of part of the drawing it looks like real ink overlayed on top. I have lost that ability since OSX and PC7. On my "Arch. D" size sheet title block this is not a problem, because there is a designated place for the stamp. But on my title blocked 8.5x11 "detail sheets" where space is at a premium and items tend to get overlapped just to fit on the paper, it is more difficult to leave enuff room for the stamp without overlapping drawing elements. The square white background under the stamp then either covers up the drawing elements below, or the drawing elements sit on top of the wet-stamp if it's on a lower layer...which belies the conceit of "stamping" a drawing. Since my signature is a font (I still have both PostScript and TrueType versions but settled on TT long ago) I do not have this problem...there is no background.

I am willing to start from scratch for a new electronic stamp from a scanned in original hard copy. I want to use a scan because my well worn actual stamp looks real, because it _is_ real, and not pristinely "electronic." What do I do next? My efforts at manipulating the original P.E. stamp scan in Photoshop have me totally stumped. No matter what I do, the resulting file imported into PC7 still has a white background. Help. Please.

OT: Have we just elected our first Marxist President?

[How Goes It]

Chris,

Vectorize your stamp.

Vectormagic allows you to adjust the amount of posterization, to where most, if not all people you deal with, would have no idea that you are using a picture that has been vectorized for you stamp.

Below is a cropped picture of a cloud that has been vectorized which retains a lot of the feathered detail, and likely far more detail then your stamp would need. This could have been adjusted to where even more detail of the original picture was retained, to where you would see less posterization.

Vectorizing your scan, then removing the white background using either Illustrator or PowerCADD, should make for a great way to place your vectorized stamp into your PowerCADD drawings.

http://vectormagic.com/

[Matt]

you should check with your state's registration board to make sure that you are using your seal in a way that conforms to the regs.

I've seen too many cases of seal forgery to be comfortable putting digital copies of my seal or signature on the street.

[Chris Black]

Matt: the whole reason for "protecting" the PDF in the first place is to prevent seal and signature forgery. The only permissions I allow these PDF's is for printing. If someone then wants to scan printed out hard copy back into electronic format, then they can also scan in normal official hard copy just as easily. If someone is going to go to the trouble to crack 128 bit encryption on a PDF to steal an electronic stamp and signature, then they are capable of far more nefarious activites than the theft of my identity.

How Goes: I may try VectorMagic if nothing else works, but at the moment I am not keen on spending more dollars on a piece of software that I use only once or twice a year. I've already got thousands of dollars of software that fall into that category. It seems to me there has got to be a more simple solution.

[Matt]

I seal the minimum number of sets required by the regs, I don't want them floating around. What would prevent me, for example, from placing your protected pdf in a powercadd document of my own, making a white mask to hide your drawing leaving your seal exposed, and then making all the drawings I want over top of it. Not much I can think of.

There are people who will cut the seal out of drawings and glue them to other drawings and there are code officials who let that by them. Hard to believe, but I've seen the cases.

[Matt]

also, you can use vector magic on a per-use basis I believe, I think they even offer a free trial.

[patrickm]

I created the artwork for my stamps in PC have my stamp included in my PC construction plans' title block, but I never include an electronic signature when printing my plans. I do occasionally send a PDF memo that includes my stamp and a scanned signature placed on top of the stamp.

In my title block, I do have my company artwork, which includes a bit mapped image of water reflecting sky. (Peter -- the image was taken in one of our outrigger canoe races across the Catalina Channel.) Because the image is bitmapped, it slows down scrolling in PC. I can see that a vectorized version might speed things up. I might buy some vector magic tokens to see if vectorization will help me out. I might spend the other tokens on nice sky or cloud shots that I can use in presentation drawings.

regards,
patrick

ps: I don't think we have elected our first Marxist president.

[Matt]

our second?

[How Goes It]

Chris,

There is another way to do this if you don't have Illustrator. You could do it by using Pages.

Bring your 8.5 x 11 PowerCADD drawing into Pages. Then bring the scan of your stamp in and use the INSTANT ALPHA menu command of Pages to remove the white background that is part of your scanned stamp image.

You should then be able to adjust the opacity of the remaining scanned image, which would give the appearance of a lightly inked stamp, in which the underlying print would show through. This could give an even more realistic looking stamp, and something that would make it a little harder for someone to get a clean photocopy or scan of your stamp, especially if you made the stamp the same color as the background image showing through.

But it you decide to go the Vectormagic route, once you get PC ver. 8, you should be able to apply transparency to give a lightly inked stamp effect also --- I think. (I'm still on ver. 6)

[How Goes It]

I made a mistake in the above message saying to use the MASK function.
What I should have said was INSTANT ALPHA.

I've changed the message above to show the correct command that needs to be used.

[MikeCharek]

[Chris Black]

Mike, I was unaware that you suffered from BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome). Just take 32 aspirin and call me in the morning.

[MikeCharek]

Does that mean deranged like Bush?

[How Goes It]

Chris,

Like Matt & Patrick talked about --- there is an on-line version of Vectormagic, where you buy tokens to use this version. No need to buy the standalone version in this case. The on-line version should do the job.

BUT, if you decide to try Vectormagic, you will need a program such as Illustrator to open the eps file that Vectormagic generates. Once you open the Vectormagic file in Illustrator, you can then simply drag the vectors out of Illustrator, over into PowerCADD.

You can edit your vectors and remove the white background in either Illustrator or PC.

M-Rick pointed out previously that the eps files Vectormagic generates, are a more recent version than those PC can open. That's why you need something like Illustrator to act as a go between.

If Engineered Software updated PC to handle a more recent version eps file, you wouldn't even need something like Illustrator to open the Vectormagic files. You'd be able to open the Vectormagic eps files directly in PC.

If you ever decided to buy Vectormagic, I believe they will apply whatever tokens you purchased, towards the purchase of the standalone version. Check with Vectormagic on this one.

When using Vectormagic -- in order to get a vector file with more detail, let Vectormagic scan or vectorize your image, using their Photo settings as opposed to using the Logo settings. Within either the Photo or Logo settings, their are adjustments that can be made, where if you don't get the results you're looking for, you can go back and tell the program to rescan at a lower or higher resolution, or to change to a different type of scan (Photo to Logo, or Logo to Photo for eg.).

Steve

[Chris Black]

Thanks to all for the suggestions. I have temporarily solved my overall problem, and may have a better solution soon.

Usually in the past I did not need to have my PE stamp possess a transparent background, and hence have few legacy docs where transparency was important AND present. After some searching, via PC2000 (PC5) and Classic, I found a doc that had the blue colored PE stamp with transparent background. Good, thinks I. Opening the same doc in PC7 preserves the transparency of the stamp, but turns the color black. After all manner of futzing around with Auto Trace Bits (of Polygons), and Objects to Bitmap, and some other things, which I cannot easily reproduce cuz I can't remember exactly what I did to achieve the final result, I finally ended up with a reasonably good BLUE stamp with a transparent background. And it is dim-able as well. Good enuff for the time being.

How Goes Steve/Matt/Patrick: Curious as to what Vector Magic might produce, I created an account to get the free 2 trial samples, and vectorized the 300 dpi original JPEG stamp scan I have been using for some time. The end result, via Illustrator CS1 to PC7, altho usable, was not quite as good as what I produced in the serendipitous method from the legacy doc. Methinks the old bitmap stamp scan originally came from a time when the actual stamp was newer and less worn out. (I remember the very first time I scanned my stamp was by sending a fine resolution fax to my Mac, and then converting into some other format...back in the day when faxmodems were the rage.) The newer scan, which I like because of its fuzzy edges, which is the scan I used for Vector Magic, did not work as well, altho if I owned the app perhaps by playing with the options could have produced a superior result. In any case, I was impressed by the possibilities of Vector Magic, and may use it in the future...and perhaps even purchase outright.

All of this lead me to face the fact that my real stamp is essentially worn out, and after 23 years of use and many thousands of inking impressions, it really is time to get a new one. I placed an order for a new stamp, and for _only_ $10 extra, will receive a JPEG of the new stamp. I plan then on uploading the new electronic stamp and vectorize via my remaining free trial at Vector Magic. The much cleaner new JPEG may produce a clearly superior vectorized end product, and I will report back here once that experiment is concluded.

Matt: I too only seal the absolute minimum number of sets required by local jurisdictions...even my clients do not get wet-stamped originals. (Key word here is "originals.") The electronic stamping I have done is more for official letters and detail sheets that I send to building depts., etc., in order to keep projects moving along until official hard copy is received. Sometimes I use the electronic stamp for creating a PDF and then print out at reduced size for marketing purposes. My main point is that I _DO NOT_ distribute stamped docs willy nilly. Identity theft is a real issue. To the best of my knowledge my stamp or professional identity has never been stolen. I have, however, had two of my designs provably stolen...but that is a whole 'nother discussion I do not want to address here or now.
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New subject: Why is it that imported PDF's and transparent objects in PC7 print out just fine (or reasonably fine) on my HP DesignJet 110+nr, but not on any of my lasers (the now dead HP Color LaserJet 2550n, the new replacement HP Color LaserJet CP1518ni, or the "junk printer" Lexmark E120). Placed PDFs in PC7 seem to reverse, and transparent objects become solid black. If I create a PDF of the PC7 file, then _ALL_ my printers print out "reasonably" OK (altho there are some color shifts). Is this only a problem with PC7 and OSX 10.4.x, and perhaps solved with PC8 and/or 10.5.x? I have a workable solution (creating PDFs), but it is truly a pain in the ass. How are others dealing with this issue?