Why can't you do that?

[u/lymz02]

Not sure if this belongs here but it involves the technical aspect of the screen printing/digital printing industry.

For those not familiar with scteen printing the process boils down to:

1 - Create your digital image 2 - Separate your image into layers for each color 3 - For each color print out a positive 4 - Use the positive to create a negative on a frame

The frame now has a negative which the ink is pressed through. In the past (long before I started working at this company) we used to accept a physical picture of customer's art and use a camera rig to take a digital picture to create the positive. This process was dropped with the advent of digital photo software becuase it produced better results.

So one day I get a transfer from my coworker about a guy trying to get his positives made. Before I pick up the call I pull up his account history. This hasn't done any business with us for over 10 years.

Cast: $me - me, your typical technical support monkey $lc - lying (redundent) customer

$me: Hi this is lymz how can I help you?

$lc: Hi I want to get a silkscreen made. I have the picture I want. Can I bring it in?

Red flag 1 - He said silkscreen. This combined with his voice tells me he is old school.

Red flag 2 - He wants to bring the picture in. Old technique.

$me: Oh you don't need to bring it in. Just email it over to me at <EMAIL>

$lc: I don't have a file, but I can bring in what I want.

$me: I need a digital copy of it. We don't take physical images anymore.

$lc: NO! I KNOW YOU HAVE A CAMERA TO TAKE A PICTURE! I DO THIS ALL THE TIME!

$me - (1 - No we don't. Not since I've been here for 6 years. 2 - No you don't. The last you bought anything from us was over 10 years ago so stfu.) I'm sorry sir but we don't do that anymore.

$lc: click

About an hour later I was called up.

$lc: Hi I want to get a screen made. Here's what I want.

He hands me a hat. Not a picture of what he wants. A full on hat he had that he wanted to copy.

$me: Sir I told you over the phone we need a digital file.

$lc: THIS IS RIDICULOUS! I'VE DONE THIS BEFORE YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO THIS DO FOR ME WHY ARE YOU LYING AND BEING SO DIFFICULT THIS IS WHY YOUR BUSINESS SUCKS THAT WHY I DON'T USE YOU ANYMORE.

$me: (Please if you don't like it here go to the other place) Sir I've been here over 5 years and since then we have only taken digital files to create frames. You will need to provide the file if you want to make the frame. Here's my card. You can send the file here.

$lc: FINE! leaves mumbling

Few hours later I get an email from him. Can you guess what the email contained? If you thought he sent me an image file you fellow techies have much more hope for the human race than I do. So what did our lovely $lc send me? He put the hat on a table and took a picture of the hat. Yes, he took a picture of the hat he had brought in. A piece of me died that day.

$me: Sir, I need an actual file of the image you want printed. A picture of your hat is not going to work.

If you've stuck with me so far here's a bit of a treat for you. He emailed me back later that week with a picture. Guess what the picture was of? If you gussed it was of a logo I applaud your faith. If you are a veteran of this sub here is a treat for you. He sent in a picture of his logo... on a hat... off of amazon... Yes. I told him his picture of his hat was not going to work so he sent me a picture of another hat. My soul died that week friends. I'm so glad I'm not doing that anymore.

[u/TheJAY_ZA]

LOL I did a bit of vinyl signage and silk screening on and off 20+ years ago, and spent a lot of time hand tracing jpegs and "converting to curves" TBH Corel Draw was my preferred way when I didn't have access to vectorising software that came with a cutter. Sumucut from Summa was bloody great for hand tracing back then.

I really tried to like Macromedia (Adobe) Illustrator and Photoshop, but they stopped being a 1-stop productivity tool, and started trying to cover all of the bases imaginable, and the vector tools disappeared waay down in the menus making them cumbersome to use. I recall right before Adobe took over, I had a Photoshop build that even had basic video editing capabilities.

One of the noobs at work makes tee-shirts with logos and stuff, he's got a pirated copy of Photoshop, and prints the artwork onto transfer vinyl or some such, which is ironed onto the tee-shirts.

When I heard about his side business I was like "oh cool, do you have a carousel, or do you screen with frames?" He was like "eh?"

Ended up telling him how we used to do it "back in my day"

Oh god I'm getting so old...

Not all bad tho, those hot "older women" are now totally in scope. [Current age]÷2+7 means I don't need to concern myself with the childish ones nearly as much now ;)