ARTWORK

RIGHT FROM THE START

Well designed artwork creates the right image, delivers the correct message and makes the sale, bad design has the opposite effect and may do more damage to your business than you think. If you are going to spend money on print allow for the design in your budget, even if it is at the expense of quantity. It's better to have 500 effective leaflets than 5000 ineffective ones.

Our team of designers can produce your artwork for you at very competative prices all you have to do is choose ‘Artwork + Print' when placing your order and you will see the relvent extra cost, a lot less than you'd expect. If you are in any doubt please discuss your requirements with one of our team.

To get the best results we need as much information from you as possible about the
way you want your job to look. Take a look around you and decide which printed items you've seen and like and let us have a look at them. We want you to get the best out of us so let us know all of your preferences.

We can also accept your own artwork files - please refer to our guidelines to ensure you don't suffer any unnecessary delays or expense.

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FAQ ON DESIGN

CAN YOU PRODUCE A DESIGN FOR ME?
Of course, all you need to do is write your text and provide images and we'll do the rest.

I CAN'T FIND THE RIGHT PICTURES, CAN YOU HELP?
We have wide access to photo libraries and can source most images if you let us know what you are after.

CAN I SUPPLY YOU WITH IMAGES I'VE DOWNLOADED FROM THE WEB?
This is not advisable, images on the web are usually low resolution and will not reproduce on our press to a high enough standard.

I WOULD LIKE TO DO THE ARTWORK MYSELF, IS THIS OK?
That's fine, if you feel confident enough to create your own masterpiece, but please read our guidelines carefully before starting work on it and if you have any queries please don't hesitate to ask for our advice.

I RECENTLY BOUGHT A MAGAZINE WITH DESK TOP PUBLISHING SOFTWARE ON THE FREE CD, WOULD IT BE OK TO USE THIS TO CREATE MY ARTWORK?
Unlikely, unfortunately cut price software does not have all the features that are required for us to produce your job effectively. Check the list of software and formats we accept on page 32 or give us a ring before you waste your valuable time.

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CREATING YOUR OWN ARTWORK

The following contains advice you need to know before creating and sending your artwork to us.

We want your job to print with no problems and look exactly as you intend, of the small number of jobs that go wrong, the majority are supplied to us on disk.

It can be quite complex setting up artwork for print, and if you've not done it before there are some important things you need to know. Read these guidelines before you start designing and your file should print with a minimum of fuss.

Even if you've supplied files for print before, please read these guidelines anyway - our systems may be different to what you are used to.

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COLOUR ADVICE

Computers, scanners, digital cameras and monitors display images using a combination of three colours: Red, Green and Blue (RGB). Our printing process uses four colours to print these images - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK, sometimes referred to as Process Colour). Therefore all RGB images must be converted into CMYK.

RGB to CMYK conversion is best done in an application such as Photoshop or Photopaint. This must be done before sending your file to us. If not, when we print your file, our system applies a conversion which may cause the colours to appear washed out.

A colour you choose may not have a direct CMYK equivalent, these colours are known as ‘out of gamut', it will be converted to the closest equivalent CMYK , which may be very different from the colour you intended. Unfortunately this is unavoidable, for best results choose colours that are mixed from Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.

If using spot colours, work with Pantone Colours, these inks are mixed much like paint and printed one at a time. If you use Pantone colours as part of a full colour job, ensure that you converted them to their CMYK equivalent before your file is sent to us. If you don't convert Pantone colours, they will not be included in our CMYK separations. This means that the colour will not appear on your printed job and may result in you incurring unnecessary costs.

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MIXING CMYK COLOURS

Colours will reproduce best when made up from just one or two inks, for example mixing 50% magenta and 100% cyan.

You also need to avoid a heavy build up of ink by keeping the total ink coverage below 225% (i.e. 100% Cyan + 100% Magenta + 25% Black = 225%), this avoids areas of ink that are likely to ‘set off' (the process of ink transferring from one sheet to the bottom of the previous sheet) which can occur when pressure is applied during guillotining and stacking.

You may use colours made up of more than 225%, but less than 275%, in smaller areas for example headline text or logos.

PLEASE AVOID USING COLOURS WITH A TOTAL MIX OF MORE THAN 275%. TRY TO AVOID LARGE AREAS OF THE SAME COLOUR - any colour variations become most noticeable. Best to use textures or images instead.

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USING BLACK

Black can be produced in two ways. The first method is single colour black, made from 100% black ink. This is ideal for for text or solid areas less than 25mm square.

On areas of over 25mm square single colour 100% black can appear washed out and uneven. The alternative is a denser black, which consists of 100% black and 40% cyan. This dense black should be used on larger areas to ensure an even, dense coverage, as the second ink colour disguises any inconsistencies.

Black will appear duller on uncoated stock because of the absorbency of the paper. This absorbency also means that any fine detail reversed out of black may disappear. We do not recommend that you reverse out text that is less than 8pt in size.

You should also be aware that black within a photograph may have a different CMYK make-up to other parts of your design. This will be noticeable when printed, even if not on screen. Placing a photograph with a black background over a black area, for example, may reveal a difference between the two shades of black when printed. To overcome this you need to find the CMYK mix of the black in the photograph then simply mix this colour in your layout application to achieve matching blacks.

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IMAGES

When scanning photographs , save them as EPS or TIFF files, this will preserve the colour and clarity of your images. Don't use GIF or JPEG formats,they compress the image and actually discard information, causing loss of quality.

Always scan photographs at 300dpi enlarging or reducing them to the size you are going to use them. Try to avoid re-sizing your scanned images by more than a few percent in your design application.

Do not use images copied from the internet, these are normally low resolution and will result in poor quality when printed.

All colour image files must be saved as CMYK.

If you are scanning line art (i.e logos), scan these at 800 to 1200dpi for best results.Any lower, and the image may appear fuzzy.

Images taken on a digital camera are perfectly acceptable, please make sure you resize, convert to CMYK and save them at 300dpi before using them in your layout programme.

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MARGINS AND BLEEDS

It's good practice to leave a clear margin of 4mm from the edge of the page. This will look more professional and objects won't appear to be falling off the page.

If any part of your design bleeds off the page, please ensure your image extends beyond the page by 3mm.

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TEXT AND FONT ADVICE

When working with small text, it's best to use colours which contain only one ink. There can be a small fluctuation in the position of the colour printing plates leading to a blurring of text if more than one colour is used. It's fine to use mixed coloured text in headlines or type above 12 point. This also applies when you reverse white text out of a coloured background made up from more than one ink. Use white or 100% yellow for best results.

  1. Include all the fonts that you have used in your document when you supply your job to us. Postscript fonts come in two parts - the screen font and the printer font. We need both, so please make sure you send both. True Type fonts only come in one part.

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DO NOT USE!

Many graphics applications contain features which are not compatible with printing technology. We have prepared a list of features that don't work. Please don't use any of the following items:

  • HAIRLINES - Hairlines print at different resolutions on different machines. They may print fine on your laser printer, but will disappear on our 2400dpi platesetter. Use 0.25pt lines instead.

  • COMPRESSION - You can happily use WinZIP or StuffIT to compress your files, but never compress images using LZW compression or JPEG encoding. This will cause lots of problems and may result in your file not printing at all.


  • QUARK PICTURE BOXES - In Quark Xpress if you don't fill a picture box with colour, the TIFF inside may print with a ragged edge. Make sure your picture box is filled with ‘white' rather than ‘none'.

  • OLE OBJECTS - PC applications can copy objects between themselves. Unfortunately, they don't print properly. Always convert OLE objects to bitmaps before sending your file.

  • JPEG/DUOTONE/RGB IMAGES - These will print in black and white, or with washed out colours.

  • AUTOMATIC PAGE NUMBERING -These will change automatically when we impose your job into printer spreads.

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PROOFS

Depending on the service you choose you may receive a PDF proof or a printed proof before we proceed with the job. The proof acts as a guide as to how the finished print will look, and should be used to check that the text is correct and that no items are missing. Our proofs cannot be relied upon to identify objects such as hairlines and JPEGs/RGB/Duotone images (which may proof in colour, but print in black and white).

If colour accuracy is essential please supply originals which can be matched when the job is on press. If you are sure you need a more accurate colour proof we would suggest a ‘wet proof' which can cost up to £150 please ask for details.

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CREATING PDF FILES

PDF files have become the industry standard format for transporting artwork files, but it should be pointed out that PDF FILES ARE NOT ALWAYS PERFECT, sometimes things change in the same way as they do in other formats - they are not 100% platform or device independent as the software programmers would lead us to believe.

Fonts can still be missing, image quality can be reduced, artwork can change, but when generated correctly most of these issues should be avoided making this our preferred option when accepting artwork files.

If you have created your artwork to the specifications outlined in this guide and you follow our simple instructions here you should minimise any problems that can occur:

  1. Most applications have an option for exporting your artwork as a PDF, these will invariably have preset selections for producing different types of PDF (for example ‘PDF for Screen', ‘PDF For Email', ‘PDF For Pre-press' etc.). We need PDF files created for printing on a litho printing press (or Pre-Press). Do not be tempted to generate a PDF for screen or email, these files may be very small but will result in inferior results.

  2. All applications will differ in the interface they use, you will have to locate the following options.

  3. If you have the option to EXPORT ALL TEXT AS CURVES, select this box. This removes the need for fonts to be supplied separately, the text becomes a graphic.

  4. Select any box that enables FONTS TO BE EMBEDDED, this will then include a copy of the fonts within the PDF removing the need to supply the fonts separately.

  5. Do not compress or downsample any of the images. When given these options always select NO COMPRESSION.

  6. Finally when exporting your artwork you should have an option for the colour space to be used - ALWAYS SELECT CMYK.

  7. Select the option to INCLUDE TRIM MARKS.

  8. Select the option to BLEED PAGE ITEMS.

 

If you need any further advice please ring our studio on 01225 812930.

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PDF GENERATOR

A simple way to generate PDFs is to download one of the many free shareware software applications.

The one we recommended and use ourselves can be downloaded from the following website: http://www.primopdf.com

Once installed you can use this program like you would a printer from within your application.

Instead of printing out a copy of your artwork it will produce a PDF file. When you get the option select ‘Pre-Press'.

This is a simple way to produce PDF files but doesn't allow for trim marks or bleeds but is fine for simple jobs.

For more complex jobs you will need to buy a commercial PDF creating application such as Adobe Acrobat.

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HELP! Call us on 01225 812930 Monday-Friday 9am - 5pm