Latte mug distortions

[AlanD]

I've read up on distorting images and text for latte mugs and I found the using Photoshop and or Corel Photopaint to be not so easy to get consistantly good results/fit without a bit of trial and error. As a signmaker I use several signmaking packages and one of these is exceptionally good at this distortion by importing widely available distortion templates, importing a rectangular version of your design and then enveloping that to the template shape. It works with bitmaps and vectors alike but you have to export as bitmap if you want to put it back into CorelDRaw or other for output.

Programme is Vinyl master and you can find it here http://www.vinylmasterpro.com/ demo and different specs.available. Pro version a bit over the top for basic stuff.

I've just done over 30 latte mugs with 18 different designs and each distortion took less than 2 or 3 minutes. Distortion template came from Listawood and I redrew it as vector. I had the shape routed out of plywood so now I just print out with a little bleed, lay the plyood shape over and run my knife round ready to attach to mug.

Just thought I'd share

Alan D