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Artwork Tips

Please find below some artwork print preparation tips before you submit your artwork to us. This will help speed up the processing of your order and ensure accurate print colours and quality.

Got your own artwork tips? Get in touch and send us yours.

We can accept lots of different formats and there is a big list below as proof! But in a nutshell what we really prefer are PDF and Jpeg files. See further down the page for the low-down on how to properly save PDF files.

For really good print reproduction we need files saved at 300ppi. This refers to the number of pixels per inch. Less than 300ppi and your artwork might print dotty or fuzzy.

Please always save your artwork at the size it is to be printed. If you supply us artwork that is saved at a small size and you want it printed big then things are going to go horribly wrong! We can scale artwork down but we can't scale it up without a loss of resolution (and good resolution is what makes the image lovely and crisp and sharp).

If possible save your artwork in the colour format CMYK as these are the ink colours used to print your artwork. We can convert your artwork to CMYK but this will change the colour of your artwork and it might not print as you expect it to. If you work in CMYK when designing your artwork then this will give you a much better idea as to how the final printed piece will look.
Bleed is the little bit of extra that goes on all the edges of your printed piece. We print it and then we chop it off. What this does is ensure that your printed product does not have an ugly white edge along the sides, but a nice clean and seamless break. As a rule of thumb we ask for a 3mm bleed on all the edges, so as an example you will supply your A6 flyer with the dimensions 111 x 154mm and after we have printed and trimmed it it is returned to you at the standard A6 size of 105 x 148mm.

Press ready PDF - with fonts embedded, for best results high resolution 300dpi.

Quark Express – Collect for Output and zip fonts, images and Quark file in one file. Or output 'Press Ready' PDF from Quark.

Illustrator – fonts converted to outlines and supplied as AI or EPS files. Or output 'Press Ready' PDF from Illustrator.

Freehand – fonts converted to paths.

Photoshop – layers flattened, at least 300 dpi, JPEG, PDF or Tiff. Remember to include 3mm bleed. PSD files can be supplied - please advise if your artwork contains layers.

Corel Draw – fonts converted to Curves then export as Illustrator AI file.

InDesign - fonts converted to outlines. Save as a 'Package' and zip the fonts, images and inDesign file in one file. Or output 'Press Ready' PDF from inDesign.

Raster or Pixel Based Programmes - ie Photoshop/Paint/Gimp. Export as Tiff, JPeg or PNG. Ensure the original artwork is 'press ready' at 300dpi and includes 3mm bleed.

Supplying Native Files - When supplying native files e.g. Quark Express, please ensure all elements, document, images and fonts are in one folder and please compress using Stuffit or similar to .sit or zip files before sending.Type your paragraph here.