Lauren over at Creative Curio suggested a print checklist would be a good idea for a post, so here are my suggestions on setting up a graphic design job for print.
When you are designing a job that needs to be printed there are certain things that need to be remembered and checked.
FOR A FOUR COLOUR PROCESS PRINT JOB
1. Make sure all images are 300dpi at actual size and saved as a tiff or eps
Note: if you blow a raster (Photoshop) image up in your layout programme (Quark/Indesign) you are in effect lowering the image resolution. Vector (Illustrator) files are resolution independent, which means they can be blown up without image quality deterioration.
2. Make sure images are set to CMYK
Note: CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black, the colours the printer will use to create the print. Small dots of these colours will make all the different colours in the printed document eg. small dots of yellow and cyan will look like green.
3. Allow Bleed on a document – usually 3mm unless otherwise stated
Note: Bleed is an amount of image/colour etc that reaches out past the trim lines. This allows for print movement and slight inaccuracies, so if the guillotine moves slightly you won’t have a white edge for instance where there should have been blue.
4. Convert illustrator eps text to outlines
Note: Before you send a job to print if you are using an illustrator eps with text within it convert the text to outline. This prevents any font issues from the embedded font. make sure you save yourself a copy of the files without the text turned to outline in case you ever need to amend it.
5. Check your document only contains only the 4 colours CMYK.
Note: Make sure if you do have any spot colours that they are specified to split into 4 colour process.
6. Add a percentage of a colour to large areas of solid black
Note: If you have a design that uses large areas of solid black it is a good idea to add a percentage of another of the process colours to it to give more density. For example if I am doing a job with a large area of black I would perhaps create a new colour called special black with 100% black and 50% cyan (make sure it is set to split to process colours). This is often known as a shiner. You do have to be careful using this technique if you are using small text on the black, as any slip in the colours could mean that your white out text, ends up cyan. If in doubt it’s best to take advice from your printer on this.
FOR A TWO COLOUR PRINT JOB
1. Make sure all images are 300dpi at actual size
2. Make sure images are set to duotones (or you can use monotones of one of the colours)
Note: If you are using duotones (images made up of two colours) make sure you have named your two colours the same in photoshop as you have in Quark or Indesign. Any slight differences will mean your document will output to more than one plate. For example if you have chosen pantone 144cvc as one of the colours in your duotone, but then choose pantone 144cv (no c at the end) you are in fact creating an extra plate.
3. Allow Bleed on a document – usually 3mm unless otherwise stated
4. Convert illustrator eps text to outlines
Note: As mentioned in point 2 also make sure you have named colours the same throughout your files.
5. Check your document only contains the 2 colours you need and they are set up as spot colours
Note: (you won’t be able to get rid of the CMYK colours but in Quark can remove the default RGB blue green and red)
USING CUTTER GUIDES
1. Create your cutter guide in illustrator and colour the stroke a SPOT colour, I usually name this Cutter. in illustrator specify in WINDOW – ATTRIBUTES overprint stroke (checkbox).
2. If you are pulling your cutter guide (as above) into quark – go into EDIT COLOURS – EDIT TRAP and set your cutter colour to overprint. This makes sure the cutter doesn’t interfere (knock out) with any of the print work below it.
TRAPPING
In general I leave quarks trapping to its defaults, except in the case of cutter guide as mentioned above or if I am working on a 2 colour job where I have text in one colour going over a pale tint of the other, when I will specify the text to overprint. Otherwise you get a spreading effect. If in doubt ask the printer to check the trapping for you.
MY PROCESS OF CHECKING DESIGN FOR PRINT
Whenever I am designing a document – unless I am just a concept stage I will ensure my images are all CMYK and 300 dpi and I have include 3mm bleed as I go along. Once I get the go ahead to send the artwork I will however do a final check. I use Quark so I will double check:
- I have include bleed wherever needed
- That all my colours are set to 4 colour process (for a 4 colour job) and I remove the default RGB Red Blue and Green colours in the Quark palette.
- Then I do a collect for output and open up all of my photoshop images to check they are CMYK and 300dpi and open up my illustrator images check them and convert any text to outlines
- If possible send a printout or PDF to the printer so the files can be checked against it. If you are using any spot colours make sure these are specified to the printer.
There are programs such as Flightcheck that will check your print is set up correctly – in terms of colour splits and images, but this is quite expensive.
If you are looking for more information on setting up design for print http://www.printernational.org has some good advice.
David Airey Graphic Design also has some good advice on on things you should consider before printing.
If there is are any suggestions or methods you use to check your design before it goes to print, please feel free to add them to the comments below.
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28 Comments
Thanks, great list.
Good for those web designers which are getting things printed for the first time.
Interesting that you use Quark, do you ever feel the urge to switch over to Adobe because of their increasing popularity/dominance in the market?
This is an awesome post Tara.
I have been having serious difficulties wrapping my head around bleeds for some reason. I understand the concept, but when I print something from my local Epson R200 printer, it always has a border around it.
A friend told me that you have to actually make the document bigger to include the bleed. For example, if you want your final output to be 8.5 X 11 with an 1/8 bleed, then you should set you document up with the bleed in mind. The actual document size would be 8.625 X 11.625. Is this true? Or does it only apply to home printing?
Any help from the pros out there would be most appreciated.
Regards,
Bryan
Hi Joel, I have been using Quark for about 15 years now and rarely have any problems with design for print as I know how to use it fairly well. I have tried Indesign when i worked Inhouse for someone but I really don’t like the way it handles images and of course I am not so familiar with making sure everything is set up properly for print. I am hoping Quark sticks around for quite a while yet.
Hi Brian, Using Quark I would set my document up to the correct (finished trim size) the bleed would go outside the print area. So for an A4 document may Quark page size would be A4 210x297mm but my bleed would start at X=-3mm y=-3mm coordinates if that makes sense. The printer would print this on a sheet that is larger than A4 to allow for bleed and trimming (to be honest they would probably plan up a few on a sheet – whatever works out most economical).
When printing at home on an inkjet if I wanted to print out an A4 sheet that had bleed I would print it out on an A3 sheet (I would still set the document up A4 size though) with the 3mm bleed and registration marks showing so it is easy to trim to size. I know inkjets are supposed to print to the edge, but it never works well for me.
Great checklist, Tara. This’ll come in handy for a lot of people.
There’s an old design guide for print on my site, which I’ve linked to. It covers a few of the things you mention.
Tara,
I use InDesign CS2, and have never worked with millimeters, so your help, although appreciated was a tad convoluted. Should I be working with an alternative measurement rather than inches?
Dave – Thanks for the link!
Bryan
Sorry Brian, I don’t think it matters whether you work in millimetres or inches. I have converted what I said to inches. In effect what I am trying to say is that you would set your document up the correct size (finished trimmed size) the bleed would go outside the document edges (does that make sense? – If not let me know and I will create a diagram)
Using Quark I would set my document up to the correct (finished trim size) the bleed would go outside the print area. So for an 8.625 X 11.625 document my Quark page size would be 8.625 X 11.625 but my bleed would start at X= -1/8inch y= -1/8inch coordinates if that makes sense. The printer would print this on a sheet that is larger than 8.625 X 11.625 to allow for bleed and trimming (to be honest they would probably plan up a few on a sheet – whatever works out most economical).
When printing at home on an inkjet if I wanted to print out an 8.625 X 11.625 sheet that had bleed I would print it out on an larger sheet (I would still set the document up 8.625 X 11.625 size though) with the 1/8 bleed and registration marks printing out so it is easy to trim to size. I know inkjets are supposed to print to the edge, but it never works well for me.
Tara,
So . . . if I wanted a true 8.5 X 11 print with an 8th inch bleed, I would have to take it to a printer as my inkjet has a max print size of 8.5 X 11.
Along those same lines of thought, if I wanted a true bleed from my inkjet, I would have to set the document size to 8 X 10 with an 8th inch bleed, and then print it out using 8.5 X 11 paper?
My head is spinning. LOL!! I don’t know what time it is there, but it is 7am here.
Thanks Tara,
Bryan
“So . . . if I wanted a true 8.5 X 11 print with an 8th inch bleed, I would have to take it to a printer as my inkjet has a max print size of 8.5 X 11.”
Yes
“Along those same lines of thought, if I wanted a true bleed from my inkjet, I would have to set the document size to 8 X 10 with an 8th inch bleed, and then print it out using 8.5 X 11 paper?”
You would be better off just setting your document up as normal and output it at 85% or 90% to your inkjet but it would obviously not be full size.
My head is spinning too now
Great article. Small addition: don’t forget to flatten your artwork!
Yay! Just in time, too
I start my new, wholly print based job in a week! This is going to get printed out and posted on my wall. Thank you, Tara! You’re wonderful!
I would not have thought of creating outlines for Illustrator fonts. Thanks for noting that.
Can you explain the shiner thing more? I’ve not heard of doing that. What do you mean “split to process colors”?
I’ve never heard of cutter guides either. Is this used in die-cutting? If so, then I think I know what you’re talking about, I just didn’t know the name.
InDesign has a good flight check feature that I use. It tells you about any errors it thinks might be encountered by the printer. The most useful part to me is checking the color spaces/profiles of the images. Inevitably I have at least one I forgot to switch to CMYK!
@Bryan: I wish I’d been here sooner! I could’ve helped ya (I speak in inches
). When printing at home, there should be an option to print without borders, but I’ve found this usually stretches the image and I don’t like the results (ok if you’re printing photos for a frame, but not a specific 8.5×11 design). You would need to use 11×17 paper to get your bleed for 8.5×11. If you have a double page spread of 8.5×11 pages (two right next to each other, like a magazine layout, which equals 11×17) you would print on 13×19 paper and put the two pages next to each other in the middle.
If I’m printing layouts (at home) that have bleed in some areas but white in others, I usually do a merged copy in Photoshop and paste it in a new document the size of the actual paper I’m printing on, and then add a very light grey stroke to the layer so I easily know where to cut.
Print shops usually use picas and points to measure. I find it much easier to work with this system because 8.5×11 is 51×66 picas, which divides much more nicely in half and especially in thirds (17×22) than 8.5×11 (2.8333×3.667).
Quick little reference:
1 pica = 12 points (hence the standard 12 pt font when you open up text editors like Word)
1 inch = 72 points (like point sizes of fonts)
1 inch = 6 picas
Whoa! I better stop writing. Hopefully there’s not a comment length limit!
Hi Lauren, Good luck in the new job, I hope the list helps a bit, you can always email me if you’re stuck, I might have to do the same with some CSS to you.
If for example you were creating a brochure cover that was predominantly black and you actually just coloured it process black, when it was printed it would look pretty flat and not very dense. So you create a special black – I don’t use Indesign but in Quark _ would go to – EDIT – COLOURS – NEW – then create a colour with 100% black and 50% cyan I would name it special black and leave it in CMYK mode (I don’t want an extra plate) – Does that make sense?
You can test it with an inkjet/colour laser – create 2 squares of black, then colour one normal process black and the other a special black (100% black and 50% cyan) when you print it out the one with cyan in should look much denser and have a bit of a shine.
oops.. forgot to say, yes cutter guides are used for die cutting- for example if you were creating a folder with a flap or piece of package design.
Patrick – Thanks for the addition to the list
Ok, I think I get it. I never would’ve thought to do that! So “split to process” just means don’t make it a spot color?
yes – that would have been a lot quicker if I’d just said that wouldn’t it
I just started an internship (been here three weeks or so) doing production and pre-flighting so a few of these (a lot of them I happily knew!) were really great. I have one question though; what is the point of not using true black? I’ve heard it before but I’ve never gotten an explanation as to why it’s done.
Thanks!
Hi Jake – I am not sure what you mean by true black – do uou mean just using 100% black or do you mean using a mix of all the colours to make a black?
Sorry, I just re-read my question and realized that I mixed up what I wanted to say. That’s what I get for reading blogs while I’m doing work.
My question is, what is the point of adding something like 50% cyan to black if it covers a large area?
No problem Jake. Adding another colour gives the black a bit more density over a large area. Like I mentioned to Lauren-
You can test it with an inkjet/colour laser – create 2 squares of black, then colour one normal process black and the other a special black (100% black and 50% cyan) when you print it out the one with cyan in should look much denser and have a bit of a shine.
Sounds great, I’m going to test it out right now on the copier here.
Great checklist. I also check that my output profile match the one the printer has specified. Which is normally euroscale v2 coated here at least. I rarely find that in checklists but isn’t that something you do?
Thomas – To be honest I have never really heard of output profiles I leave everything on defaults. I have never had any problem in 15 years but you will have to advise me more on this one.
Thanks for the checklist! I find often that printers are always throwing out their own random asks, and maybe with this type of consolidated list I can ensure we do all we can so the printer can just get the thing out the door.
Great post. I only wish I’d read this a decade ago; would have saved me learning the hard way–printers can be very undiplomatic.
The outlines for illustrator fonts is a good tip.
Tara, I’m interested to know what it is about InDesign’s image handling that you don’t like. I use InDesign CS3, and I love it’s image handling, the ease of re-linking single and multiple image links, etc.
Time for a Quark vs InDesign post, Tara (please)
Thanks for your comment Satish.
Hi Johno, I don’t know InDesign well enough to do a comparison
, I have only used it a couple of times but didn’t like the way you could see the edge of the image that was not within the picture box, I just found it confusing. I don’t like illustrator for this either. Maybe you could do a comparison I would live to hear the pros and cons of each? That’s if you are not too busy with the typography blog (thanks for the link by the way). 
Actual tips and i use most of them but forget some.((
Some helpful tips here! Cheers
Looking at the post I can see that this is quite old but still very, very relevant.
It’s good to know that there are still some meticulous and conscientious designers out there who still take pride in their work and print results!
I will certainly keep this post bookmarked as a reference source to others.
One point I would like to contribute – if people still struggle with getting their artwork prepped for print then they should visit the Pass4press website and install the relevant plug-in. Printers seem to use their presets as standard nowadays and it really does save a lot of hassle …