Technical Info

Artwork Guidelines

Many of our clients set files up for print every day. For those clients all we ask is the usual:

• Check that you have allowed bleed where required - 3 mm is normal.
• Check all images are in CMYK mode as RGB can give inaccurate colour.
• Check that all fonts are embedded in eps and PDF files.
• Send us a printout of your job file as things may change from computer to computer – mainly to do with fonts.
• Please let us know whether you use a PC or Apple Mac computer – we may need to make adjustments to your files.

Setting up your files for print

We tend to work to tight deadlines to ensure your requirements are met with speed, quality and value. We can only achieve this if your files are set up correctly. Anything that is not standard or completely correct can always be sorted out, but will take extra time and may incur extra cost. If you are unclear on any of this or have any other queries then please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Imported photos and graphic files

Photos should always be supplied in CMYK colour mode (not RGB), resolution should be not less that 300dpi placed at the actual size required and saved in TIF format (always turn LZW compression off). This is unless you have used clipping paths in which case EPS format is required. Do not use the clipping path facility in Quark Xpress V4+ as it can produce unpredictable results. Always create a true path in Photoshop and save it as a clipping path (with a flatness of about 3) before exporting as EPS. Remember to limit the amount of points in your path, as too many will also cause problems. We can accept JPG files but these can result in lower quality, as this is a compressed format.

Logos and vector based graphics (Illustrator, Freehand, Coreldraw) should always be saved in EPS format, preferably as editable versions, and always with a preview when it is an option. We do not advise creating multi-page documents in these programs as extra work is required to impose them for print. Also never embed large photographic images within them as the file sizes and subsequent processing times will be excessive. We recommend that you do not enlarge photos more than a few per cent, or if you have to reduce more than 30%, resize in Photoshop to save time and disk space.

Fonts

Only use legitimate PostScript fonts from respected foundries such as Adobe, Monotype, Bitstream or Letraset. Do not use TrueType unless absolutely unavoidable. Include both printer and screen fonts on your disk.