Tips & Tricks
Preparing Your Files Correctly for Printing Will Save you Time & Money!
Your design is finished. The company has approved it. And now you have about a week to get 10,000 printed pieces of it! Of course, Lasting Impressions is available to you to help make that vision a reality. But there are a few steps you can take before handing us the files that will make everyone’s lives easier.
Step 1: Check Your Images!
Image Resolution:
With access to the internet at an all time high, it’s always tempting to use images you find online in designs destined for printing. Resist the temptation! Images you find on the internet are set up at a low resolution of 72dpi. This is optimal for screen viewing, but in a print setting, it will come out either very blurry or very jaggy. Always use hi-resolution photography of at least 300dpi for printed materials. You can check image resolution by opening the image in Photoshop, clicking on Image in the main menu, and pulling down to “image size”. There you can see “Document size” and “resolution”. Ideally, the resolution will be 300 dpi. If it is lower than that, take a look at the document size. If the document size is much larger than you need (for example, it’s 12x12 and your printed piece will only have the image at 2x2) you may still be able to use the image successfully. Change the document size with “resample image” unchecked and see what your resolution becomes. If it hovers near 200-300, you should be ok. But never try to change a 72dpi image to 300dpi image…the results are never pretty. It’s better to go find your image in a higher resolution.
Image color: CMYK vs. RGB
If the photo is color, be sure that you have converted the format from RGB to CMYK. Images in RGB (red, green, blue) have been optimized for screen viewing only; printing uses a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) to output color images. If you haven’t converted your images from RGB to CMYK before going to print, they will not print properly. To check an image, open it in photoshop, click on Image in the main menu, and pull down to “mode”. Then just make sure CMYK is checked and resave the image.
Image format: Just say NO to gifs and jpegs!
GIF and JPEG formats are meant for screen resolution. The best formats for printing your images are EPS and TIF. Make sure to convert your files to one of these formats for successful printing. (In photoshop, when you save a file, you will be given a pulldown menu of options for formats.)
STEP 2: Set Your Bleeds
If you plan on having color go to the very edge of the paper on a printed piece, you must set up the file so that the color goes over the edge of the document by 1/8”. This is called a “bleed”.
STEP 3: Get Rid of Extraneous Colors & Styles
Take a look at your document and delete any unused colors or stylesheets. While you are doing so, ensure that all of the colors in your document are formatted correctly. Is it printing 4-color? Then your colors should be in “process color/CMYK” format. Is it printing with Pantone equivalents? Make sure the pantones are set up as spot colors.
STEP 4: Give Us Everything!!!
We need the file itself, ALL of the fonts used in the file (including any that are in embedded graphics, like Illustrator files), and all of the images used in the file. And most importantly, please give us a printed laser proof of the final file so we can check our output against yours. Without it, we have no way of knowing whether the fonts are showing up correctly and the images are coming through as they should.
Download a prepress checklist here, complete it and include it with your job.
Following these guidelines carefully will help ensure timely and cost-effective devliery of your print jobs.
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