| Saving a scanned photograph |
| If you are scanning the images yourself from photographs it is better to save them in either tif, or eps format. These image formats will preserve the color and sharpness of your pictures the best. |
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| Scanning Resolution |
| You should scan your images using a resolution of 300dpi at the final dimensions you intend to use them so that your colors will look smooth, and hard objects will look sharp. In other words don't scan at 300dpi and then enlarge the picture by 200% in your layout program! This is another reason why you should not use images that are lifted from websites; they are probably only 72dpi in resolution and will look very blurry if printed on a printing press. |
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| Control over the appearance of printed pieces |
| You will have more control over the appearance of your printed piece if you convert all of the images from RGB to CMYK before sending them to us. When we receive RGB images, we do a standard-value conversion to CMYK, which may not be perfectly to your liking. We want you to be happy, so please, take the time to prepare your file properly. We cannot be responsible for sub-par results if you furnish low-res images or RGB images. |
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| Putting text over images |
| Be careful about using photographs for backgrounds. If you put text (any color) on top it can be very hard to read. So the secret is to lighten the photograph a lot--more than you may think is necessary. Use a photo editing program like Paint Shop Pro or Adobe PhotoDeluxe. |
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| Add a bleed to your artwork |
| Bleed is the term for printing that goes right to the edge of the paper. The way to do this is to make your document .25" too big in both dimensions. For instance, if the final size is 8.5" x 11" then make your document 8.75" x11.25". Draw guides on the layout that are .125" from the edge all the way around. Now create your design with the idea that the layout will be cut off where those guides are....because that is precisely what is going to happen. Make sure that any photographs or backgrounds that you want to bleed go clear out to the perimeter of the document, past the guidelines. Then after we have printed your piece we will trim off that extra .125" all the way around and voila! You have color all the way to the edges of your piece. It looks professional.... |
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| Back copy of Plastic Cards. |
| Add helpful information to the back of your card. It encourages customers to refer to your information more frequently. |
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| Folded brochure |
| The most common mistake made when creating a folded brochure with a fold-out or roll fold is making every panel the exact same size. The front and back must be the same size, but the fold-out panel must be slightly shorter to allow the brochure to lay flat. The same rule applies to a roll fold with multiple fold-in panels; each panel must be short as the pages roll inward. |
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