I would like to just touch on a few most commonly used. Nearly all printers accept high resolution PDFs. You can use Adobe Acrobat to create a PDF file from your artwork. Remember to embed the fonts too!
The most commonly acceptable native file formats accepted are:
Quark Express
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Coreldraw
If you have photos or images to print then the following formats best suit these:
TIFF (.tif)
Adobe Photoshop (.psd)
Illustrator EPS (.eps)
Windows Bitmaps (.bmp)
Corel Photo-Paint (.cpt)
JPEG (.jpg)
It is strongly recommend that artwork should not be solely created in Photoshop. This program is ideal for altering photos and adding effects to images. Publisher and Word are also programs to avoid creating artwork in. If you do supply artwork in these formats, prepare to be charged for converting them into print-ready artwork. Establishments will charge for time spent. Therefore, do it yourself!
Your files should also be created in CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black) and at 300dpi resolution - as quality is important! Anything less than 300dpi will result in poor quality print. Remember that printers/presses can only print from artwork supplied.
Most print companies will have templates or guidelines to adhere to when designing specific artwork. These range from simple flyers, postcards, and posters to more complex manuals, DVD booklets, CD inlays & cover as well as CD or DVD labels. I will go into more detail about these at a later stage.
Also, other tips to look out for when supplying artwork for print are insufficient bleeds or safety margins. Bleed is extending any colour, image, photo or design past the cut line. Bleed also helps printers with a margin of error when trimming. Normally, it’s acceptable to add 2mm of bleed to your designs/layouts. The opposite of bleeds is safety margin. Placing an important header/title or image/photo right next to this crop line, then you risk it being slightly cut off. The recommendation is that you allow for 3mm inside the crop marks.
South African born Keith has lived in the south of England for most of his life. After graduating from University with a degree in Business Information Systems Management he decided to start Strawberrysoup; a website design company based in West Sussex and Dorset. Keith successfully gained entry into the Southampton University Air Squadron and spent over 12 months training to fly. Since then he has continued to follow his interest in flying and has now began his own training in the form of a Private Pilot's Licence. Keith also spent 13 months working within the Image and Printing Group at Hewlett Packard in Bracknell. Throughout his time there, he was responsible for many activities including events organisation and website design and maintenance.
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