Artwork FAQ’s

The main problems with these type of programs is that initially, they are not aimed at the print professional. As you know, they can do a superb job creating in-house stationery, presentations etc. and printing directly to desktop machines. (Publisher has improved over the years and can produce acceptable results). One of the main downsides for instance is that if you insert an image in Word this is embedded as a pixel-based image at 72dpi (presumably to keep file sizes down) and consequently would give poor results if output to a high-resolution imagesetters (2400dpi + !).

These type of programs also tend to embed images as RGB instead of the CMYK format neccessary for professional litho printing.

As with most types of problems, there are of course workarounds. If your only way of sending your artwork is by one of these programs then please try and send (separately) an original version of any graphic used in the document. The text we can cut & paste, but once the graphic is embedded then we are often stuck with a low-res image.

You’ve just designed my logo. Who owns the copyright?

Once we have done any design work on your behalf that has been paid for then copyright is 100% yours. No argument.

We hear, with alarming regularity, of companies in our business that refuse to part with paid-for design unless an extra payment is received to release copyright. Personally, I think this sucks. One of our clients told us of the case where he was charged £150 for his artwork to be released and copied onto a CD!

Our simple policy is: if you have paid for artwork to be produced, then this belongs to you, and no-one else. End of story.

Quite often we need to re-design logos or create them from scratch and we are quite happy to email these to you or save to disk at no charge whatsoever, providing the account is up-to-date.

For more important information regarding copyright please see here:  Copyright Information

Graphic Formats

I’ll try to keep this as concise as possible as the subject would easily fill a book!

I won’t get into the technical details of the different file formats. If you need to learn more about this aspect then a quick search in Google will yield numerous results.

Here are a couple to get started with:
http://www.dansdata.com/graphics.htm
http://www.bu.edu/webcentral/learning/fireworks1/introduction.html

Dealing with graphics depends on what you wish to use the graphic for.

For instance, if you are a web designer and your client has supplied you with a hi-res, 300dpi version of their logo, then the first thing you would do is ‘optimise‘ this graphic, which basically entails knocking down the resolution to 72dpi (the standard monitor screen resolution) and adjusting the colour amount until you have a graphic that comes in around 20 – 30k in size. This, along with any other optimised graphics on a web page, has one purpose. To make the page load as quickly as possible.

With the printing process we are looking to achieve the opposite. i.e. the higher the starting resolution, the better. As a rule of thumb, we work to 300dpi. This figure isn’t plucked out of thin air, but calculated as a percentage of line-screen used.

You are now probably thinking that you haven’t been told anything worth knowing! Let’s take a look at a few of the main formats dealt with in printing.

First of all, there are basically 2 flavours of file type.

Bitmaps and vectored images.

Bitmaps:

These are pixel-based files generated by programs such as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and in fact, any graphics program will output bitmap files with extensions (the 3 letters after the dot in a filename) such as:
*.jpg – *.tif – *.gif – etc.

Working with bitmaps – how many colours am I using?

How many colours to use? This is the most confusing aspect when working with bitmaps. Generally speaking, bitmap files cannot be colour-separated. (There is a way, but not used in everyday quick turnaround print jobs).

Colour-separated?

Firstly, you need to understand the difference between spot colours and process colours, see here: Spot Colour Printing. If you are only using 1 colour, or a 4 colour process (usually reserved for brochures/magazines or reproduction of colour photographs etc.) then creating a bitmap is fine, providing you have checked the resolution is ok.

If your goal is to have the job output using spot colours, 2, 3 or 4 perhaps, then creating a bitmap is not the best way forward. For this process you would ideally use a vector-based program such as Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand etc. (more info below).

If you are considering creating a bitmap to send for print then the most important thing before you start is to set the empty workspace in your preferred graphics program at 300dpi (dots-per-square-inch).

If you have already created some artwork below 300dpi please don’t try to ‘up’ the resolution to 300 as this will only interpolate the artwork (add similar coloured pixels) which will increase the output size, but won’t help the resolution. Unfortunately, you would need to start again!

Vector-based artwork

For spot colour work this is the preferred choice. File types are normally recognised by the extension .eps (not to be confused with a Photoshop .eps which is basically still a bitmap) .wmf, or .ai.

Vectored images are produced using a mathematical line description (I’m trying to keep this simple!) and as such can be enlarged to any size without distortion of the image. Also, the artwork can be edited very easily to make colour changes, line thickness changes etc. etc. An Illustrator/Freehand .eps file is easily colour-separated and has the added advantage of usually being much smaller than a bitmap of the same design.