Artwork, ready for press.
A file set up the way the press expects prints the way you saw it on screen. Here is what we look for, and why. If anything is off we will tell you before we print, not after.
Send a PDF.
One file, fonts inside, nothing left to interpret. Every design program exports one.
Best
Export as press quality, PDF/X-4 if the program offers it, with bleed and no crop marks (we add our own). Fonts embedded, images at full resolution, one page per page. From InDesign, Illustrator, Affinity, Canva, Word or anything else that prints.
AI, INDD
Fine, packaged
Native files are welcome when something may need a hand from us: a color to match, a size to adjust. Package them (File, Package in InDesign) so the fonts and links come along, and zip the folder.
JPG, PNG
For photographs only
A photo as a JPG or TIFF is fine. A whole design as a JPG is not: the type goes soft and the colors shift. If the design only exists as an image, send the largest one you have and we will look at it with you.
We take PDF, AI, EPS, INDD, IDML, PSD, TIFF, JPG, PNG and ZIP by email, up to 250 MB a file. Bigger than that, send us a link.
Bleed and safe area.
Paper moves a hair as it is cut. Bleed and the safe area are how a design survives that.
Bleed: 1/4 in past the trim
Anything meant to reach the edge of the piece (a background, a photo, a color bar) must run 0.25 in beyond the finished size on every side. A 3.5 x 2 in card is built at 4 x 2.5 in. Without bleed, a sliver of white shows wherever the cut lands a hair inside the art.
Safe area: 1/8 in inside the trim
Keep type, logos and anything that must not be clipped at least 0.125 in inside the finished edge (0.25 in for booklets, whose pages are trimmed after binding). A border right at the edge is the one thing we cannot cut perfectly evenly; make borders generous or leave them out.
Set the page size to the finished size and add 0.25 in of bleed in the export settings; do not build the bleed into the page size, and do not scale a letter-size design to fit a card.
300 pixels per inch, at the size it prints.
A screen needs 72. Paper needs four times that as a baseline, and there is no way to add detail that was never captured, so more is always welcome.
300
Photos and images
The baseline, in pixels per inch at the printed size: a 4 x 6 in photo wants 1200 x 1800 pixels. The press resolves more than that, so for fine line art, small type inside an image or a photograph that will be looked at closely, 400 to 600 ppi at printed size is welcome, and the press makes use of every pixel. A picture saved from a website is usually 72 ppi and prints soft at anything bigger than a postage stamp.
∞
Logos and type: vector
Shapes and letters drawn as paths (AI, EPS, SVG, or live type in a PDF) print sharp at any size. Ask whoever made your logo for the vector file; a PNG of it is not the same thing.
150
Large format
A large print read from across a room can be 100 to 150 ppi at full size. A poster read up close still wants 200 or more, and a photograph or fine art print wants the whole file. When in doubt, send the biggest one you have.
Color on paper.
A screen glows; paper reflects. The press builds every color from four (cyan, magenta, yellow and black), and a few colors a screen can show are simply not in that mix.
CMYK, or RGB and let us convert
Build in CMYK if your program can, and you will see on screen roughly what the press can do. If your file is RGB we convert it here; bright oranges, deep blues and neon greens are the ones that shift most. We print digitally, and the press is calibrated and profiled for each paper it runs, so a printed proof is what you get: ask for one when a color matters.
Black, two ways
Small type and thin lines: 100% K only, so there is nothing to misregister. Large solid areas: a rich black, 60 C 40 M 40 Y 100 K, which prints deep instead of charcoal. Never 100% of all four; that is more than the press and the sheet can take.
Spot colors and matching
If a brand color has a Pantone number, name it in the file and tell us in the notes. We match it as closely as the paper and process allow, and we will say up front when a color is out of reach on the stock you chose.
White ink and foil: on their own layer
Foil and white ink on a dark or kraft stock are set up for the job and quoted through Start a project, so tell us before you design for them and we will say how it works on the paper you have in mind. Put everything that should be white or foil on its own layer, filled with a spot color named White or Foil, set to overprint, and send the rest of the art as usual. We will check the separation with you on the proof.
Type and lines.
The small things that read fine on a screen and vanish on paper.
6 pt
Smallest type
For black text on a light paper. White text on a dark background needs 8 pt and a sturdier face; thin strokes fill in when they are made of paper instead of ink.
0.25 pt
Thinnest line
Hairlines set to 0 or 0.1 pt print as whatever the press can manage, which is not what you meant. Use 0.25 pt and up, 0.5 pt for a line in a color or reversed out.
Aa
Fonts embedded or outlined
A press-quality PDF embeds them for you. If you send native files, outline the type or package the fonts; a substituted font changes every line break on the page.
Booklets: single pages, in order.
We put the pages where they go on the sheet. You give us the pages the way a reader meets them.
x4
Pages in multiples of four
A saddle-stitched booklet is folded sheets, and each sheet is four pages. 8, 12, 16, 20 and so on, counting the cover. A 14-page booklet is a 16-page booklet with two blank pages, and it is better to plan them than to be surprised.
1, 2, 3
One page per PDF page, reading order
Not spreads. Page 1 is the front cover, page 2 its inside, and the last page is the back cover. Every page the same size, with bleed on all four sides. Our own template on the booklet page is set up this way.
1/4 in
A wider safe area
Booklets are trimmed after folding, and the inner pages push out a little (creep). Keep type 0.25 in from the outside edges and let crossovers (a picture across the spine) be forgiving of a small shift.
Posters and wide format.
Posters, photographs and fine art prints in pigment ink on paper, photo media and more. A print holds its color for years indoors and, on the right media or under a laminate, outdoors too. Build at full size when the program allows it, or at a clean fraction and tell us which.
Full size, or 1/2 scale
Prints come off the roll up to 44 in wide, and wider ones by arrangement. A 24 x 36 in poster at 100% is fine in any modern program, and so is a much bigger one. If yours will not go that big, build at 50% with the resolution doubled to match (a 50% file wants 400 ppi where 200 is the aim), and write the scale in the notes.
Banners, signs and stands
Vinyl banners, yard signs, rigid boards and retractable stands are quoted through Start a project: tell us the size and where it will go, and we take it from there. Keep anything important 1 in from the edge of a banner, where grommets and hems live; for a retractable stand, ask for the template, because the bottom several inches disappear into the base.
Before you send it.
Eight things, thirty seconds. Then send it over and we take it from there.
- The page size is the finished size, with 0.25 in of bleed on every side.
- Nothing that matters sits within 0.125 in of the edge (0.25 in for booklets).
- Images are at least 300 ppi at the size they print; logos are vector.
- Colors are CMYK or a named spot; small black type is 100% K.
- Fonts are embedded or outlined; the smallest type is 6 pt.
- Booklets are single pages in reading order, a multiple of four.
- One PDF per piece; the front and back of a card are pages 1 and 2 of the same file.
- The proofreading is done. We check the file, not the spelling.
Not sure about your file? Send it anyway.
Every file gets a look before it prints, and you see a proof before we run it. If something needs fixing we will say what, and often we can fix it here.