| Preparing Artwork Details PrintsByMe.com
has tried to make the uploading of your artwork and images as easy and straightforward
as possible. Because PrintsByMe.com utilizes a high-powered Xerox iGen3 4-color
digital printer to produce your jobs, the policies, formats and preparation guides
below are intended to ascertain your job is printed at the supreme quality for
which the iGen3 is renowned.
Image
Files
Formats
- Image files should be provided in EPS
(use the BINARY format) or TIFF (avoid using JPEG's or TIFF's with LZW compression)
formats due to their non-use of lossy compressions.
- Image file formats
such as JPG (or JPEG), GIF, BMP and PNG should be avoided if possible.
| Preparing
- All images should be edited, rotated,
cropped and sized in an imaging software application such as Adobe Photoshop.
Do not re-size, crop, rotate or adjust images in Desktop Publishing (DTP) applications.
Place all images into your DTP application at 100%.
- In order to obtain
high-quality output, the recommended image resolution should be 300 dpi at the
actual finished size. If you must resample (scale) images, use bicubic sampling
and crop all images in Photoshop.
- When saving images as TIFF files in
Photoshop, embed the ICC Color Profile, if possible.
- Link your image;
do not embed them in your DTP application.
- Do not nest one EPS file inside
another EPS file.
- Avoid using JPEG compression.
- Reduce the number
of points in your vector artwork to a minimum (fewer points does not mean lower
resolution, vector art is resolution independent).
- Do not use the Hairline
setting when defining outlines in vector files, specify the outline width yourself,
such as .25 points.
- Scanned line art should be scanned at 600 dpi.
| Design Guidelines and Best
Practices Desktop Publishing (DTP) Applications
- It is highly recommended designers
use a DTP application for their page layout. Examples of these applications are
Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress and Adobe Pagemaker.
- Bitmap
images should be edited in graphic editing applications like Adobe Photoshop or
Corel Photo Paint.
- Vector images should
be edited in graphic editing applications like Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand
or Corel Draw.
| Page
Size
- If your design will
bleed, create your page size 0.2" larger than the desired finished size;
this allows for 0.1" of bleed area on all sides of the document.
| Layers
- When you are
ready to create your design:
- download
the related Product Guideline Template
- create
a guideline layer
- make an image frame
the entire size of the page
- place the
EPS file inside the frame.
- drag any
necessary guidelines to match the page marking identifiers provided
- delete
the layer from your design.
| Bleed
- If your design bleeds:
- create your page size 0.2" larger
(this provides a 0.1" bleed area on all sides) than your intended finished
size
- place our product template guideline
on a separate layer
- drag guidelines
to the defined bleed area
- delete the
guideline layer.
| Fonts
- Preserve text as a font; do
not rasterize text in the DTP application.
- When
converting fonts to outlines (for example, in a logo with which you do not want
to distribute a special font), be sure to check the [Flatness] or [Output Resolution]
setting in your application. If possible, set to "printer default" or
to a minimum of 600 dpi.
- Create solid
black text with 100% K only for the densest black. The iGen3 produces high quality
solid text. Compared to offset, black text is especially sharp due to the density
of the iGen3 black toner.
- Avoid locally
stylized fonts. These fonts may look good on screen but many high end rips will
strip off your applied styles leaving only the original font specified in your
document, and replace it with the default printer font. If you want a bold font,
use a font that has a bold typeface available.
|
Color
- Design artwork
in CMYK to yield more precise matches, while keeping images in RGB for more vivid
color. (RGB has a larger color gamut.)
- Define
solid color text in CMYK whenever possible. RGB solid text, such as 100% red,
may reproduce as a tint.
- Rich Blacks
may not produce the results you normally expect with traditional printing.
- Be sure to specify the color as a [Spot]
color. This will allow the digital press to provide the best spot color accuracy
within the limitations of the printer.
- Do
not change the name of PANTONE colors (e.g., PANTONE 106C to Sunshine Yellow or
to PANTONE 106C copy).
- When PANTONE
colors are desired, refer to a printed press sample provided by the PrintsByMe.com
for the most accurate matching.
- Large
solid fills can show some banding when printed, adding Noise or using a very subtle
pattern will minimize color variations.
- Gray
text, graphics, and gradients will be best produced if they are created with K
only in a CMYK working space.
- Design
with smaller areas when using tints and/or design with colors less than 40% or
greater than 70% in value. Sensitivity to color variations may be reduced by introducing
a texture or by adding text or graphic objects.
- Gradients
- If possible, create all gradients using
CMYK.
- For gradients blending to white,
set the same color to 0%. Do not use white.
- Avoid
creating gradients that blend from a very dark color (e.g., navy blue) to white.
They have a tendency to have more banding.
- Example:
define the first color as PANTONE 032C: 100%, define the second color as PANTONE
032C: 0%.
- The best produced gradients
will be produced when using vector gradient tools in programs such as Illustrator
that take advantage of PostScript Language Level 3 and PDF 1.3 Smooth shading
operations.
- Adding Noise or a Gaussian
blur can improve gradients in Photoshop.
- As
with any digital or offset printing system, saturated text presents the best appearance.
When a tint is used, the halftone screen may be visible on the edge and cause
a jagged appearance. Text containing at least one ink of 100% C or M or K presents
the best appearance with solid, rich colors.
- Unless
you are using a color managed monitor that has been modified to look like your
printing process, don't expect the colors you see on the monitor to match your
printed output. Remember monitors use RGB to create color images on the screen.
- The Xerox iGen3 is designed to expect a
total ink limit of 325% and the traditional commercial print amount of dot gain.
| General
Layout
- Design your
work so graphics do not cross the fold areas, or use light coverage in these areas
as an alternative.
- Lines can be printed
from sizes of 0.03 points and larger.
- Be
sure to spell check your document before submitting to be printed.
| Paper Stock
- Higher quality
images print best on coated and smooth, non-porous stocks. Avoid, if possible,
choosing textured stocks like linen for high quality images.
| Text
- For positive
solid text use a minimum of 2 point and 3 point for reverse text.
- For
positive tinted text use a minimum of 4 point and 6 point for reverse text.
- With smaller text, sans serif fonts are
recommended.
| Trapping
- For best results, trapping
should be applied by PrintsByMe.com and not in the DTP application.
| Transparency
- Transparency
in InDesign
- Select the [Transparency
Blend Space] in the Edit menu to [Document CMYK].
- Use
the Transparency palette to control transparency effects.
- The
Flattener Preview palette [Window: Output: Flattener Preview] can display areas
where transparencies are present and how they will flatten.
- Be
sure to enable [View: Overprint Preview] for the most accurate display of what
the final design will look like.
-
In the page layout or design application, set the transparency raster/vector control
to the highest setting to prevent objects from being rasterized.
- Cautions
- Spot colors should
be avoided in transparency designs as they may convert to CMYK when flattened.
- Avoid transparency designs that contain
both RGB and CMYK content.
- Overprint
objects in transparencies may not be preserved.
| Black Overprint
- By default,
InDesign always overprints objects with 100% process black applied to them (100%
process black appears as [Black] in the Swatches palette), including all black
strokes, fills, and text characters of any size. It can be less expensive and
easier to have the print shop overprint process black on the press. You can choose
to overprint [Black] when printing or saving selected separations.
- If
you disable the overprint setting in the Preferences dialog box, all instances
of black will knock out (remove underlying inks).
- Windows:
Choose Edit > Preferences > Appearance of Black or Mac OS: Preferences >
Appearance of Black
- Select or deselect
Overprint [Black] Swatch at 100%.
- Note:
Overprint [Black] Swatch at 100% does not affect tints of [Black], unnamed black
colors, or objects that appear black because of their transparency settings or
styles. It affects only objects or text colored with the [Black] swatch
| Print Ready File Creation PDF
File Creation
- Download
the iGen3 Distiller Job Options file from our site
and place in your Distiller\Settings folder on your local drive.
-
Open Adobe Distiller and select the iGen3 as your Default Settings and close Distiller.
- Now go to your Printers and Faxes list,
right click on the Adobe PDF printer and select Properties.
-
From the Adobe PDF Properties window, select the Advanced tab and click the Printing
Defaults… button.
- From the Adobe
PDF Printing Defaults window, select the Adobe PDF Settings tab.
-
In the Default Settings drop down box, select the iGen3 settings.
-
In the check boxes below:
- For Acrobat
7 uncheck the Do not send fonts to "Adobe PDF" option
- In
Acrobat 8 uncheck "Rely on system fonts only; do not use document fonts."
- In the Paper/Quality tab click
on the Advanced button and change the setting for "Print Quality" to
"600dpi" and "Truetype Font:" to "Download as Softfont"
then click on OK until all dialog boxes until they are closed.
-
Now open your DTP application and the native file you needing to covert to PDF
and select File and choose Print.
-
elect the Adobe PDF printer and click Print.
- This
should create a submission ready PDF of your design.
- Printing
with Transparencies
- In the printing
or exporting windows always select [High Resolution] for the Transparency Flattener.
- Transparencies will always flatten
when printing to PostScript or EPS, or if they are exported using the Acrobat
4 (PDF 1.3) format. Transparencies will remain "live" only if exported
using the Acrobat PDF 1.4, 1.5 or 1.6 formats.
- Note
that when transparencies are not flattened, printing results can be unpredictable.
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