MANYPrints

Resolution: 300 ppi at the printed size

Photos need 300 pixels per inch at the size they will actually print, a long-standing standard. Size and resolution trade against each other: a photo that is 300 ppi at 4 by 6 inches falls to 150 ppi if you stretch it to 8 by 12. A full-page image on an 8.5 by 11 inch flyer needs roughly 2,550 by 3,300 pixels before you add bleed.

Enlarging a small image adds pixels, not real detail, so a logo copied from a website stays soft however you resample it. Logos, icons and type should be vector artwork, which stays sharp at any size. Banners and signs viewed from across a room can often use less resolution; ask the printer for its minimum.

Color: CMYK, spot inks and two kinds of black

Screens mix red, green and blue light; most presses print cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink, known as CMYK. Ink on paper can’t reach every color a backlit screen shows, so bright greens, blues and oranges often print duller. Convert to CMYK, using any profile your printer names, so the shift happens on your screen where you can judge it.

For a brand color that must match from job to job, specify a Pantone spot color, a premixed ink used mainly on offset presses. Digital presses usually simulate spot colors with CMYK, so expect a close match, not an exact one. Set black up deliberately:

• Use plain black, 100 percent K alone, for body text, fine lines and small type.
• Use rich black for large solid areas, which otherwise print dark gray; 60 cyan, 40 magenta, 40 yellow and 100 black is a common mix, though many printers publish their own.
• Avoid rich black in small text, where slightly misaligned plates leave colored fringes.
• Avoid registration black, all four inks at full strength, in artwork; it is meant for trim marks.

Bleed, trim and the safe zone

Cutting equipment drifts slightly from sheet to sheet, so any color or image that touches an edge must run past it. That extra margin is the bleed: commonly 0.125 inch on each edge in U.S. layouts, or 3 mm in metric ones. A standard 3.5 by 2 inch business card with bleed is built at 3.75 by 2.25 inches.

The trim line is where the blade should fall. Keep text, logos and anything else important inside a safe zone, usually at least 0.125 inch in from the trim, and more if the printer asks. Skip thin borders near the edge, since a cut that wanders slightly makes them visibly lopsided.

Fonts, fine detail and the PDF you send

Embed every font when you export, or convert type to outlines in a final copy, because a PDF without its fonts may print with substitutes that reflow your lines. Most printers ask for PDF/X, a family of ISO standards for print files. PDF/X-1a, the stricter and older option, flattens transparency and allows only CMYK and spot colors; PDF/X-4 keeps live transparency and layers and allows color-managed RGB. Use whichever the printer specifies.

Rules of thumb most printers accept:

• Keep body text at 8 points or larger and fine print no smaller than about 6 points.
• Make reversed, light-on-dark text larger and bolder, since ink spreads into thin strokes.
• Keep lines at least 0.25 point thick so they don’t break up or vanish.
• Plan saddle-stitched booklets in multiples of four pages.

Paper weight, coating and finishes

Text stock is the thinner paper of flyers, letterhead and book pages; cover stock is the stiffer sheet of business cards, postcards and covers. U.S. paper weights are quoted in pounds, but each grade is weighed in a different basic sheet size, so 80 lb cover is far heavier than 80 lb text. Grams per square meter (gsm) compare directly across grades.

Coated paper holds ink on the surface for crisp photos and saturated color, in gloss, silk or matte versions. Uncoated paper absorbs more ink, looks softer and is easier to write on, which suits letterhead and forms. Pantone publishes separate coated and uncoated swatches because the same ink looks different on each. Finishing options and what they need:

• Matte, gloss and soft-touch coatings or laminates protect the surface and change its look and feel.
• Spot UV adds a clear, glossy layer to chosen areas and needs its own mask in the file.
• Foil adds metallic or colored film to chosen areas and also needs separate, solid artwork.
• Scoring before folding keeps heavy cover stock from cracking along the fold.

Approve proofs as if they were the final print

The printer prints what you approve. After sign-off, a typo or a missing bleed is generally your cost to fix, so read every proof slowly, ideally with a second person who didn’t write the copy.

A PDF proof confirms layout, text and trim, but no monitor shows exactly how ink will look on the chosen paper, so when color is critical, ask for a printed proof on the actual stock. Before you approve, check:

• Names, dates, prices, phone numbers and addresses, character by character.
• Page order, folds and which side prints face up.
• Images and edges: correct crops, nothing pixelated and no white slivers at the trim.
• Quantity, paper, finish and delivery date on the order itself.

Digital or offset: matching the press to the job

Digital presses print straight from the file with no plates, so setup is fast and cheap. They suit short runs, tight deadlines and variable data, such as a different name or number on every piece. Offset presses use a plate for each ink, which costs more to set up but lowers the price per piece on long runs and allows true Pantone inks and a wide choice of papers.

The quantity where offset becomes cheaper varies by job and shop, so ask for prices at two or three quantities and by both methods. A few hundred flyers usually favor digital; many thousands of catalogs usually favor offset.