Easy View Q and A: Tools and Effects
Easy View® is an easy-to-use design tool to create transfer artwork for t-shirts and other apparel. There are some hidden tools and effects that may not be all that apparent at first glance.
This Question and Answer session covers questions we see more often when looking for what Easy View can do, in regards to these extra tools and effects.
The top questions we answer below are:
- I would like to be able to add distress to only one image on a gang sheet. I don’t always need the entire design distressed, especially when I’m layering a design. Can this be done?
- Is there a way to turn off or to hide the pricing?
- I would REALLY like it if the Easy View page could show grid lines— I make up gang sheets and I try to place my different designs level and straight. Is there a way to add grid lines?
- I was making a design and I got the scale a bit too big. Then to fill the page, I added extra clip art and those were bigger than expected. Is there a ruler that can help me know how big the sizes are?
- Is there a way to alert me that I may have closure when I have reduced the image too much?
- Does Easy View automatically save my artwork that I have created?
- Is there a way to determine what kind of transfer would be best for my job?
- How do you add effects to a design?
- Is there a way to see all the fonts at once?
- How can I add a color change option in Easy View?
- Is there a way to change the layering of my artwork in Easy View?
- Is there a way to get my file out of my Silhouette program and just place it in Easy View?
- Can you make Easy View work more like CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator?
- Are there any video tutorials or step-by-step instructions to help learn Easy View?
- I need more art choices. Do you add more layouts, clip art, and fonts?
Question: I would like to be able to add distress to only one image on a gang sheet. I don’t always need the entire design distressed, especially when I’m layering a design. Can this be done?
Answer: Yes, you can add distress to only part of a gang sheet. There is also the ability to distress some things in a design while not distressing other items within the design, such as within a single layout or a single clip art.
If the design does not have distress to begin with, then click on the Show Special Effects button on the lower left hand side.
Then click on Distress. You can then choose the distress pattern that you would like to add. This will add distress to your entire sheet.
If you want any part of the design or sheet to not have the distress, click on each piece that you want to remove the distress from, and uncheck the check box on the left hand side that says Distress.
You can click on any piece of art and check or uncheck the box depending on if you want to include distress or not.
To get more granular when it comes to the artwork to choose certain pieces, you may have to ungroup the artwork. Be careful though on what you choose. If you want to remove distress from a piece of art, it will bring that piece to the top layer of the artwork “above” the distress layer. That could make the layers out of order and the artwork will not look correct.
Tip: If you have small text in your layout, sometimes it helps to remove the distress from smaller text so that it is more easily readable.
Question: Is there a way to turn off or to hide the pricing?
Answer: Yes, you can easily hide the pricing by changing the Design Mode to Customer Mode.
That way your customers can design their own artwork but not see the cost of the transfers.
To do this, click on Settings in the upper right hand corner. Then, click on Customer Mode to hide the pricing and Transfer Express logo. When your customer is done designing, you can switch back Design Mode to submit your order, etc.
Question: I would REALLY like it if the Easy View page could show grid lines— I make up gang sheets and I try to place my different designs level and straight. Is there a way to add grid lines?
Answer: Easy View does have a grid overlay that you can turn on and off. In the bottom left corner, click on Show Special Effects. Then click on the box next to Show Grid Lines. That will add a grid overlay on the entire Easy View screen. You can uncheck the box at any time to turn it back off.
There are also two other ways to line up objects, as well.
While dragging objects around, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard. As you move your object, it will “snap” to various “grid lines”, helping you to line up the objects in the vicinity.
The other way to align objects is to use the Align menu. To do this, select the objects you want to align. Once you have multiple objects selected, click on the Align option in the top red toolbar. A dropdown menu will appear with all of the alignment options. Choose the option that you would like to use to align your objects.
Question: I was making a design and I got the scale a bit too big. Then to fill the page, I added extra clip art and those were bigger than expected. Is there a ruler that can help me know how big the sizes are?
Answer: While there is not currently a ruler, there is still a way to know the size of your artwork, and each piece of art on your gang sheet.
Select the piece of art you would like to know the size of. Then, on the left hand side, there are width and height fields. This is the exact size it will be printed at.
To change the size of your artwork, you can use the green arrows in the corners of your selected piece of art and drag larger or smaller. Or, you can even type the exact dimensions into the width and height boxes.
Either way you choose, you can click on any piece of art and it will tell you the exact size that you have selected.
Tip: Keep a ruler at your computer or desk to reference any size design to see how big or small it will be on a shirt. Even a ruler on the computer screen would not be as good as a physical ruler in hand because the ruler size would not always be to scale depending on the size of your computer screen.
Question: Is there a way to alert me that I may have closure when I have reduced the image too much?
Answer: Easy View does not have a function that tells you that lines or show-through areas are too small. However, if you make a design smaller and are unsure, there is a way to determine if it still meets the line thickness and show-through thickness requirements.
For our standard ink types, the recommended minimum line thickness is .012”. The minimum show-through thickness is .04” for our standard inks.
To see if your art meets these requirements, add a square or circle clip art to your design using the Add Clip Art button. Then, using the width and height boxes, set at least one of the fields as .012”. To make it easy to see, change the color to a bright color that contrasts the art in your design. Then, zoom in using the + button in the upper right hand corner. You can use the shape to move around your design to see if all the lines are wider than the shape you created.
Use this same technique by changing the shape size to .04” to check the show-through areas in your design as well.
When you are done, you can delete the extra shape.
Question: Does Easy View automatically save my artwork that I have created?
Answer: Easy View contains a library of your saved artwork files. If you place an order using Easy View, the design is automatically saved in your Library, in the Previously Added to Cart tab.
If you have not placed an order yet with the design, and are saving it for later, then you need to manually save it using the Save Job As button in the lower left corner. These designs will be located in the All My Saved Layouts tab in your Library.
Question: Is there a way to determine what kind of transfer would be best for my job?
Answer: We do have the Transfer Selector Tool that will help you determine which transfer type will be the best fit for what you are trying to accomplish. It is an interactive tool that asks a few questions about your project, and by the end, it will recommend a transfer type to you.
We also have the transfer comparison chart that can help you as well. If you are still unsure about which transfer type you should use, you can always contact us and ask us. We are happy to help!
Question: How do you add effects to a design?
Answer: If you want to add effects to your design there are lots of options in the lower left hand corner of the screen. Click on the Show Special Effects button. You can add distress, patterns, and many other effects that help you to manipulate text and pieces of artwork.
To apply an effect, you must have an object selected to apply the effect to.
This page is a nice summary of what each effect looks like.
Question: Is there a way to see all the fonts at once?
Answer: Yes, there are a couple different ways you can view the font options. After you have your text selected, you can click on the font menu.
In the top right corner of the menu, there is a folder icon. Click on that icon. If you want to see all of the font choices in one long list, you can click on the All option. Otherwise, you can click on a category of fonts to only view the fonts in that category, to help you narrow down your font choices.
Question: How can I add a color change option in Easy View?
Answer: On the right hand side of the screen in the order options, there is a Color Change button. Click on this button to add a color change to your order.
Once you are in the Color Change menu, click on the Add New button. Pick your ink color and the quantity you want for that ink color.
Learn more about what a color change is here.
Question: Is there a way to change the layering of my artwork in Easy View?
Answer: Yes, you can change the layering options for your artwork. Layers refer to how the different pieces of artwork are on top of each other in your design.
Select the piece of art that you want to change the order of. Then, in the top red toolbar, click on the Order menu. In the dropdown menu, select where you want to move the piece of art – either up or down 1 layer, or to the complete top or bottom of the entire sheet. To move it more than 1 layer, just click as many times as necessary.
If needed, you can also ungroup pieces of art to change the layering of clip art components as well.
Question: Is there a way to get my file out of my Silhouette program and just place it in Easy View?
Answer: If you are using Cricut or Silhouette, you can view our detailed posts on how to get your artwork into Easy View.
How to Add Your Cricut Artwork to Easy View
How to Add your Silhouette Artwork to Easy View
Question: Can you make Easy View work more like CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator?
Answer: Easy View was created so that the non-artist could become an artist to easily create designs for t-shirts, hoodies, and other apparel. We wanted it to be easy enough that anyone could learn to use it, no matter their previous art background or skill level.
The tools that Easy View does have, we tried to keep consistent with Corel and Illustrator in how they function.
To keep the tool easy and basic, we did not add complex tools like slice tools or pen tools to edit points and nodes. This was not the intent of Easy View. We wanted it to be easy to customize our layouts, while also having the ability to upload your own pieces of art into Easy View to add to our layouts, such as a team or school mascot.
But the intent of Easy View was not to create art from scratch. If you have this sort of skill level, then we encourage you to create your artwork in Corel or Illustrator, and then upload it into Easy View to be printed as your transfers.
If your design is ready to be printed as is, you can also use the upload page to send us your file.
Question: Are there any video tutorials or step-by-step instructions to help learn Easy View?
Answer: Yes, we do have both, videos and step-by-step instructions! All of our training videos are short and to the point on how to do specific tasks in Easy View. You can get through all of the videos in less than an hour and by the end of the training, you will be an expert in Easy View creating awesome artwork!
We also have a guide book on how to do most of the functions in Easy View, step-by-step. You can download it here.
Question: I need more art choices. Do you add more layouts, clip art, and fonts?
Answer: Yes, we add more art constantly to Easy View. Every Tuesday, we release new layouts and clip art. It is usually within a theme for the week, such as football for example. This is artwork that is released all year around.
We also release hundreds of new layouts and clip art at the beginning of the year, usually in January or February. This is in addition to the weekly layouts and clip art.
In regards to new fonts, we also add 3 new font choices every month. Each month we try to add 3 fonts in different categories, giving a wide variety of font choices to use throughout our layouts.
Other Q&A Easy View Topics:
Easy View Q and A: Preview and Share
Easy View Q and A: Crop Tool
Easy View Q and A: Custom Clip Art