Quality of Files
- A good way to check the quality is to enlarge the file on the screen, and if the enlargement looks high-quality, the smaller print will certainly look good too - and vice versa. If the quality looks poor on the screen, the print will be too.
- Good image resolution (resolution) is 300-600 dpi for prints that are viewed closely. A lower resolution can be used for large-format prints if they are to be viewed from a little further away.
- If you don't have image processing software, an easy way to check the resolution of the file is to enlarge it on the screen to 300-400% size. If the file looks good when enlarged and is not blurry or pixelated, the quality is good - depending on the size of the printout, of course.
- If you are not sure about the quality of your file, ask us and we will give you our professional opinion. We always inform the customer if we suspect that the file is of low quality for printing.
Cutting Allowance and Margin
- When printing a large bunch of pages, the printout will never hit all of them in the same place. For this reason, so-called cutting allowances (=bleeds) make clean cutting easier. If you know that your product will be cut clean of the white edges that always remain when printing, then add an extra background/image to the edges of at least 2mm to your file. However, do not stretch images and other content so that they got too close to the edges of the file, otherwise, there is a risk that they will be cut off.
- For example, when ordering business cards, the final trimmed size is 90x50mm. When the file has 2mm cutting margins, the file size is 94x54mm. There is no need to add clipping marks or anything else to the files.
- Texts and other important content should be kept as far away from the edges as possible. Print and cut Due to the accuracy of the hit, there is a risk that the contents near the edges will be cut. For this reason, the recommendation is to keep the important contents 5mm from the edges (after cutting). That is, if your file has 2mm cutting margins, it is good to have the contents 7mm from the edges of the file. Of course, you can design your product so that some elements go all the way to the edge, but keep in mind that the printing/cutting may not necessarily hit exactly where you had planned. The margin of error is approx. +-1mm.
Color Profile
- CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) colors are used almost without exception in digital printing technology. Make sure your file is in CMYK colors. If your file is in RGB (Red, Green, Blue) colors, it is likely that the tones will change (usually darker) when printed.
- You can change the file's color profile in, for example, Adobe Photoshop. Computer monitors display everything in RGB format, so the image displayed on the screen is usually printed in slightly different tones, due to the lighting/brightness of the screen.