Artwork Guides
Artwork Guides
Artwork Guides
Artwork can be supplied on disk or by email. Alternatively our in-house design team can produce artwork at an additional charge, please contact our sales team for information.
Whichever program you use, when you save (or export) your file as a PDF, it needs to be a high-resolution file. You can set this in the PDF options. Ensure that the compression for both images and line / text is off, check that the colours are set to CMYK and make sure that the registration marks and bleed are on.
Images and Colour
All images should be saved as CMYK, not RGB, and as TIFFs, not
JPEGs. When printers refer to ‘the four colour process’, the
four colours are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK – hence CMYK.
So when the paper goes through the machine, the Cyan is the first
colour printed on the sheet, then the Magenta, and so on. In
general, unless you want specific ‘spot’ colours, all the
colours you need will be made out of various combinations of
these four colours. RGB refers to Red, Green and Blue, used for
screen images and ideal for web based work.
Spot colours can be used to ensure the colour you want is the colour you get. With some colours, the version that comes from a combination of CMYK can be slightly different from a specific ‘Pantone’ reference colour, and if you want to be precise, these can be added as specials, or spots. This means that as well as the sheet of paper going through the press four times, it will go through again for each spot colour required. Most spot colours can successfully convert to CMYK (four colour) but if you are in any doubt or it 'has' to be a spot colour please contact our sales team and they can advise, as there will be an additional cost.
TIFF (or Tagged Image File Format) is the preferred format for images. JPEGs (which stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group), are better for online use because the compression used makes the file smaller.
As a rule, all images used for print should be saved from a file that is at least 300dpi, otherwise they will start to pixelate, or become ‘dotty’ and ‘fuzzy’. Try to ensure that images are not any more than 100% size when placed in your document – again, this can lower the quality of the finished image.
Logos and other files created in photoshop, illustrator or freehand should be saved as EPS (encapsulated post-script) files and imported. All text should be converted to outlines and ensure that the files are CMYK also.
Registration marks and bleed
To allow for colours or images to go to the edge of your pages,
we print documents on a larger sheet, which is then trimmed to the
finished size. Your artwork must allow for at least three millimetres
of ‘bleed’ (the colour or image extending beyond the actual edge of
the page) for this to happen. The registration marks, or crop marks,
are there to show us where to trim the larger sheet down.
When you save your document as a high resolution PDF, you should ensure that all these options are set correctly. Each of the programs you might be using does this slightly differently, but it should be fairly obvious once you've clicked the export button and found the options.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to Contact Us, we will be only too pleased to help you .
Our Promise
THE PRICE YOU SEE IS THE PRICE YOU PAY, NO HIDDEN EXTRAS!
All prices include a colour proof from your artwork, all printing and finishing and next day delivery to one UK address. VAT extra where applicable.
