what would you use to inhibit translucence?

[datasuspect]

on material that is backlit?

[BurtWorm]

1. Don't eat beans.

[BurtWorm]

3. Sorry, I misread the title.

[Demoiselle]

13. Fiendish and uncontrollable cackling here...

(I'm going for something more original than lol. Or rolf.)

[BurtWorm]

14. Thank you. I like fiendish cackling.

Especially of the uncontrollable variety.

;-)

[KittyWampus]

2. soap film?

[Kali]

4. bury it a little deeper

:P

[dysfunctional press]

5. duct tape.

it can do anything.

[jmowreader]

6. Are you trying to make part of the image darker than the rest?

If you have Adobe Illustrator and know how to use it, this is REAL easy.

I'll go out on a limb and say you are doing a display ad for hamburgers, and you have a picture of eight or nine different burgers from different chains sitting there. You want the competitor's burgers to be very dim but your company's burger to be very bright--to be fully backlit.

First, open your source file--the photo of the burgers--in Photoshop and scale it to 100 percent of whatever size the finished piece is going to be--if you need a 20x24 image, set the size to 20x24 in Image Size.

Next. create a new Illustrator file, place the burger picture in it, and draw two paths. One goes around the whole image--it's just a rectangle. (On edit: make this a little larger than the plexiglass--22 x 26 would be fine. This way, when they stick it there will be some to trim off.) The other goes around the burger. Delete the burger photo and select the two paths. Create a spot color named CutContour and set the stroke color of the two paths to it. The name is CRITICAL!!!!!!! If you do not use this exact name--cutcontour, Cut Contour, Cutcontour, or anything else will NOT WORK!--the whole thing's going to fail on you in spectacular fashion.

Now find a sign shop that has a solvent-ink printer and a cutting machine--something like a Roland XC-540 would be nice, they have both functions on board. Have them order you a small roll of Arlon DPF 6500 print film (this is to print the burger image) and a roll of Arlon Series 5500 diffuser film--get the 30-percent transmission stuff for the best effect. They'll print the burger photo on the DPF 6500 and laminate it--NO liquid lam, please--and cut the burger out of the Series 5500. (On edit: When both pieces are finished, you will have two pieces of film. One will be a translucent photo of hamburgers. The other will be a hazy-looking piece of translucent film with a burger-shaped hole in the middle of it.) They then stick the 5500 to clear plexiglass, and the DPF 6500 to the Series 5500.

Word of advice: if this shop has never worked with Arlon media before, make sure they KNOW they have to wet-mount the burger photo. (Any decent sign shop will know instinctively they've got to get the substrate soaking wet when they're doing an overlay, but just in case...) Arlon is extremely sticky shit; it is hard to work with even if you're very familiar with it. You're going to get 60 feet of DPF 6500 on the shortest roll they make, which is good in this case: they will need to practice handling it. I have seen Arlon's glue pull the paint off a car, which is NOT supposed to happen.

If you want to totally kill the light coming through the other burgers, use Arlon Series 5570, which is a blockout film.

[datasuspect]

7. i'm gonna put black tarp behind the object on the rigging or something

and then shoot high intensity white light from the front, from the rear of the venue.

[jmowreader]

9. So the light source is in FRONT of the piece?

To me, "backlighting" is like the photos of Big Macs on the menu at McDonald's. So we're dealing with what, a solid object that light will go through, and you're trying to make the light not go through it?

I would get some opaque white self-adhesive vinyl with a white adhesive, like white marking film (any sign shop that cuts vinyl has a roll of this--don't get Arlon because its adhesive is gray; Mactac uses white glue) and stick it to the back of the object. Trim around the edges so you can't see it from the audience. This does two things for you. First, it keeps the light from going through the piece, which is your main goal. It also reflects the light that gets through back into the piece, which will brighten it up some.

[datasuspect]

10. no, there's light interference from floor to ceiling windows with southern exposure

and they get bright in the daytime. the windows are behind the install.

so any thin gauge white vinyl would work? hmm.

[jmowreader]

11. As long as it's opaque, and some aren't

[Quantess]

8. A lead bodysuit?

[KG]

12. bacon

[old mark]

15. Krylon. nt