| I would like to just touch on a few most commonly | | | | print-ready artwork. Establishments will charge for time |
| used. Nearly all printers accept high resolution PDFs. | | | | spent. Therefore, do it yourself! |
| You can use Adobe Acrobat to create a PDF file | | | | Your files should also be created in CMYK (Cyan, |
| from your artwork. Remember to embed the fonts | | | | Magenta, Yellow & Black) and at 300dpi resolution |
| too! | | | | - as quality is important! Anything less than 300dpi will |
| The most commonly acceptable native file formats | | | | result in poor quality print. Remember that printers |
| accepted are: | | | | presses can only print from artwork supplied. |
| - Quark Express | | | | Most print companies will have templates or guidelines |
| - Adobe Illustrator | | | | to adhere to when designing specific artwork. These |
| - Adobe InDesign | | | | range from simple flyers, postcards, and posters to |
| - Coreldraw | | | | more complex manuals, DVD booklets, CD inlays |
| If you have photos or images to print then the following | | | | & cover as well as CD or DVD labels. I will go into |
| formats best suit these: | | | | more detail about these at a later stage. |
| - TIFF (.tif) | | | | Also, other tips to look out for when supplying artwork |
| - Adobe Photoshop (.psd) | | | | for print are insufficient bleeds or safety margins. Bleed |
| - Illustrator EPS (.eps) | | | | is extending any colour, image, photo or design past |
| - Windows Bitmaps (.bmp) | | | | the cut line. Bleed also helps printers with a margin of |
| - Corel Photo-Paint (.cpt) | | | | error when trimming. Normally, it’s acceptable to |
| - JPEG (.jpg) | | | | add 2mm of bleed to your designs/layouts. The |
| It is strongly recommend that artwork should not be | | | | opposite of bleeds is safety margin. Placing an |
| solely created in Photoshop. This program is ideal for | | | | important header/title or image/photo right next to this |
| altering photos and adding effects to images. Publisher | | | | crop line, then you risk it being slightly cut off. The |
| and Word are also programs to avoid creating | | | | recommendation is that you allow for 3mm inside the |
| artwork in. If you do supply artwork in these formats, | | | | crop marks. |
| prepare to be charged for converting them into | | | | |