Artwork
To help us print your work correctly we will need you to supply your artwork correctly,
so we can move things along swiftly with the minimum of fuss (we can help you get this right)
Colour Mode
When your start to design your document the file should be set up as CMYK for printing, this is what we call four colour process and stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black. We print using different proportions of these 4 colours to create a wide range of colours. When saving your document to a PDF you will also need to check that this is set up as CMYK.
High Resolution
Images are composed of pixels. Image “resolution” is simply the number of “pixels per inch” or “dots per inch” in the image. There are two aspects to every image it’s size (width & height) and resolution (number of pixels or dots per inch).
All images placed in your document need to be saved as high resolution files (300dpi). If they are saved lower then pixilation can occur, which may cause the images to appear blurry. Images should also be scanned at 300dpi.
When you save your document as a PDF it will need to be saved as a “High quality print” setting, this may vary on different programmes, so you will need to explore your programme further to find out how to save your PDF as a high resolution document.
Bleed & Crop / Trim Marks
If images or colour on your artwork go right to the edge of the page, you will need to ‘bleed’ the image slightly over the page edge, this will be 3mm on all sides where the image meets the page edge. The reason for this is we cut through the extended area when we trim your pages to size. If your image only goes to the page edge, you could be left with a small but very noticeable white edge. It is therefore very important to include this when creating your artwork. Crop Marks can be drawn on manually or automatically applied with some desktop publishing graphic design software programs.