Low/Old Tech Pattern Making?

[TheMarbleTea]

I have a 5 year old MacBook running 10.4 Tiger. I have very limited skills and software and neither the hardrive space nor the money for new. I have Photoshop Elements, iPhoto, Preview, Microsoft 2004 suite. That's all I can think of that might be relevant to PDF pattern making.

I make dolls but would like to sell patterns of some dolls I've designed and am not sure where to find instructions for the modes I have available. I still need to source an affordable scanner and I believe I can scan the all the pages as PDFs (not just jpegs) and as one file (my memory from before the ex got the scanner years ago). If not, I'll have to figure that out.

But I don't want them to look terrible and am wondering if anyone can point me to any tutorials on using older software. I am not a computer person really and certainly not a graphics one. I barely figured out how to make a shop banner in Elements with one image and finally figured out how to add font for my shop name. That's how little I know.

The good news is I used to do graphics layout for newsletters back in the cut and paste days and know how to make good quality proofs. Wondering if it might be more worth my while to do those by hand and just scan those since I know how to do it in no time? Advice anyone?

If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

[Former_Member]

The way I make patterns is to scan them then piece together in photoshop and make one big file. I then trace with vector lines but you don't HAVE to do that if you want to keep it low tech. I then divide all that up into pages that will print, add symbols so they can match then. It's very similar to the Burda tutorial out there but you do NOT need illustrator. I've never used Elements but I'm sure you can do this too?

[TheMarbleTea]

Thanks, Shiloh. I get the general gist and Elements has all the basics of Photoshop so I'll have to check that out. I don't know what vector lines are but I'll goggle that. I'm assuming it's where the computer outlines the thing making nice computerized even outlining?

[Former_Member]

Yes. I use the Pen Tool in photoshop..it has a bit of a learning curve (I taught myself when I made graphics for myspace and my fansite in high school lol) but worth it in the quality.

[TheMarbleTea]

Cool. Thanks for the help.

[TheCraftPixie]

I don't know whether this helps, and it's a bit long-winded, but I stare at my sketched out pattern looking for shapes, then build it up in word. I normally set the page size as huge as I can, then keep cutting the pattern down into A4 sized elements. I add tabs, which allow the pattern to be pieced back together again once printed.

As I say, I'd welcome any advice that would make this process easier. I am making small bags and clutches, so it's not quite the same as a dress pattern.

[TheMarbleTea]

Thanks. I finally figured out, I can just type all the instructions in Word then add photos. Then scan in the templates, and then merge the docs. From Word I can print to PDF. I just have to figure out how to merge the scanned jpg doc into Word. Hopefully will be done end of next week and I can upload.