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Ribbon Rack Images

Started by coastguard69, June 02, 2013, 10:45:46 PM

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coastguard69

How do you get to put an image of your ribbon rack in your signature after every post? Would it look bad if a cadet did it?
SCWG Encampment - 2012,2013
National Color Guard Competition(Commander) -
1st Place SCWG;3rd Place MER (March 2013)
GES,UDF,IS100,IS200,IS700,ICUT
Wright Brothers #22323 (December 2012)

Eclipse

Visit your favorite rack builder and create a graphic of your rack, upload it to your favorite hosting site (i.e Imageshack, etc.), and then link back to
it in your signature using the tags.  I make mine my avatar and then link back to that.

Advice would be not to make it overwhelmingly large, and trim off the edges and/or make it a transparent .gif or .png.

We've already got plenty of cadets with racks in their sigs.


"That Others May Zoom"

coastguard69

Could you supply for info on how to do that? I apologize for I am not very tech savvy
SCWG Encampment - 2012,2013
National Color Guard Competition(Commander) -
1st Place SCWG;3rd Place MER (March 2013)
GES,UDF,IS100,IS200,IS700,ICUT
Wright Brothers #22323 (December 2012)

Eclipse

Start here and build your rack:  http://www.mcchord.org/rack_builder/check_cdt.html

Do a screen shot shot (Google it for your platform, Windows or Mac, etc.).

Edit the screen in shot in your favorite image editor.

Once you have a graphic to work with, upload it to imageshack (create an account if necessary), and then link
back to the image by clicking "display full image" copying the URL from the address bar, and then placing it
in your signature using the image button on the lower left of the last line of the editing tools.

"That Others May Zoom"

disamuel

Ok, thanks for the tutorial.

Eclipse


"That Others May Zoom"

SpookyDude

Here's another very nice rackbuilder that has just about any ribbon for any branch of service or organization you can think of: http://www.medals.pl/us/ and it organizes them (with only some minor glitches that a photoshop person can easily fix) according to the latest Order of Precedence for the different services.

I use it to make racks for different occasions and service combinations.

Enjoy!

Eclipse

Honestly?  I've tried to figure that thing out about 100 times.  Usually about 1/2-way through I see a shiny penny on the floor and go back to McChord.

"That Others May Zoom"

SpookyDude

 ;D Here's what my "full rack" looks like from there:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us
The only issue is that it places my Army Overseas Service Ribbon in the wrong place. It's correct per Army regs, but not for Air Force wear. Everything else is correct though.

PHall

Quote from: SpookyDude on June 11, 2013, 11:09:43 PM
;D Here's what my "full rack" looks like from there:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us
The only issue is that it places my Army Overseas Service Ribbon in the wrong place. It's correct per Army regs, but not for Air Force wear. Everything else is correct though.

Interesting, an Army Aviator Badge and an Air Force Basic Aircraft and Munitions Maintenance Badge. ???

UH60guy

#10
Quote from: SpookyDude on June 11, 2013, 11:09:43 PM
The only issue is that it places my Army Overseas Service Ribbon in the wrong place. It's correct per Army regs, but not for Air Force wear. Everything else is correct though.

Actually, I have the same thing with the Army Overseas Service Ribbon where he "backwards" placement is per CAP 39-1 table 5-3. If you're wearing just Army ribbons, it goes after the Army Service Ribbon like in your picture, but if you are wearing CAP ribbons you have to follow the swapped order of precedence in 39-1 and it goes before the ASR. Weird, but them's the rules.

Check out UltraThin's rack builder for a good combination tool- it uses the correct orders of precedence for multiple services and CAP. It's at https://www.ultrathin.com/orderform.htm

UltraThin's site also lets you "cheat" to get non-standard devices on there. For example, most rack builders force me to use oak leaf clusters on the Air Medal- but I earned the Air Medals through the Army, and the AFI says you wear the devices appropriate to the service that awarded it. UltraThin lets me "cheat" and use CAP/USAF order of precedence but with the Army device (bronze numeral) on the ribbon.
Maj Ken Ward
VAWG Internal AEO

UH60guy

Now if anyone out there is great with Photoshop or image manipulation, the absolute best raw images for a ribbon rack and devices I've seen anywhere is at Marlow White http://www.marlowwhite.com/award-builder/

Unfortunately, they only do military, not CAP. But the ribbons look pretty much like a photo, so someone could probably use some image manipulation of one of the simpler base ribbons to get the proper colors for a forum display of some CAP ribbons to add on. I bet the Army or Air Force Distinguished Service ribbons might be easiest to adjust color balance on as they have a lot of white.

I'll play with this conduct serious research on this tonight (time permitting) and see if I can come up with some suitable looking CAP ribbons using these as a base. In the mean time, here's what I'm talking about- my Army ribbons thrown into an Air Force precedence with some editing to get the numeral on the air medal. I'll see if I can get some CAP stuff on there, and if it looks halfway decent, I'll share what I come up with in case anyone else wants to use it.
Maj Ken Ward
VAWG Internal AEO

SpookyDude

Quote from: PHall on June 12, 2013, 12:37:59 AM
Interesting, an Army Aviator Badge and an Air Force Basic Aircraft and Munitions Maintenance Badge. ???

Yes, Army OH-58 Crewchief (Permanent Award Orders for Army Basic Aviation Badge - not Pilot "Aviator" Badge used to be called the Aircraft Crewman Badge in my day), and AF C-130 Mechanic (AF Aviation Maintenance Career Badge). Both are authorized for wear on AF and CAP AF-style uniforms.

SpookyDude

Quote from: UH60guy on June 12, 2013, 02:15:44 PM
Now if anyone out there is great with Photoshop or image manipulation, the absolute best raw images for a ribbon rack and devices I've seen anywhere is at Marlow White http://www.marlowwhite.com/award-builder/

Unfortunately, they only do military, not CAP. But the ribbons look pretty much like a photo, so someone could probably use some image manipulation of one of the simpler base ribbons to get the proper colors for a forum display of some CAP ribbons to add on. I bet the Army or Air Force Distinguished Service ribbons might be easiest to adjust color balance on as they have a lot of white.

I'll play with this conduct serious research on this tonight (time permitting) and see if I can come up with some suitable looking CAP ribbons using these as a base. In the mean time, here's what I'm talking about- my Army ribbons thrown into an Air Force precedence with some editing to get the numeral on the air medal. I'll see if I can get some CAP stuff on there, and if it looks halfway decent, I'll share what I come up with in case anyone else wants to use it.

Very sweet. I guess if you really wanted to....you could just setup your real rack and take a quality digital photograph of it - then just use that one.....can't get more real looking than that!  ;D

SpookyDude

Here's my Marlow White created active duty rack in correct AF / CAP wear order:


UH60guy

#15
Here are some for you- I did these in MS Paint, I'm sure I could have done better if I was at home and had PhotoShop in front of me. These look a little higher quality than the usual sites out there. They're not evenly spaced or anything in the image, but you'd have to grab and drag them into a rack yourself anyway if you want to use them.



I used the images from the Humanitarian Service (purple), old Army Occupation ribbon (red, black, white), the NATO medal (blue) and the Vietnam Armed Forces Honor medal (gray stripe on Yeager) in order to get the closest colors I could.

Edit: I know the images are large, but if you're going to combine and resize for a signature anyway, might as well start at a higher resolution to not lose too much detail until it's just about finalized.
Maj Ken Ward
VAWG Internal AEO

UH60guy

Quote from: SpookyDude on June 12, 2013, 04:15:33 PM
Very sweet. I guess if you really wanted to....you could just setup your real rack and take a quality digital photograph of it - then just use that one.....can't get more real looking than that!  ;D

Sure... but that costs money :) Being a Senior member who doesn't own the ribbons or really have an occasion to wear them, digital's just about as far as I'm willing to go until it's time to hang up the saddle years down the road and make a shadow box.  ;D
Maj Ken Ward
VAWG Internal AEO

SpookyDude

Those CAP ribbons you made are excellent! I wonder if we were able to create a set of CAP ribbon images like that and submit them to Marlow White so they can add them to their rack builder app? I bet it wouldn't take much for them to do it especially if we provided the images already in the format they need...... :clap: