-
What is process of starting design from scratch to finish?
Hi Guys
Have been thinking about this for a while and then saw somebody mention it so thought I would start something going.
I outsource all my digital printing but this applies to many of people I think who want to get into digital applications.
What is the process of starting a design either from scratch or from an existing design to ensure your graphic images are at an acceptable resolution and size to get the best quality prints.
I would be keen to be able to make my files 100% print ready when outsourcing but am unsure if I am creating them correctly to get the correct size at the correct quality.
I suppose it is mainly down to photoshop and I suppose the hints and tips will relate directly to that.
Hopefully this thread will build on from here with many other questions and answers to give everybody an idea how to design large graphic images.
Cheers
Warren
-
10 Replies
-
Warren don’t mean to sound negative but it all depends on who’s doing your printing ! So if you’re not sure best ask them.
I normally send my stuff as .eps at 300dpi at 50% or 25% of full size depends on what it is and files sizes etc, make sure colour modes are set to cmyk.
If you are using a vector based package for creating graphics make sure all type is converted to outline !
I hope thats a little help, others on here that run large format printers might be able to give you a better idea !
-
Hi Warren
I usually use eps or pdf files at at least 300dpi. Really depends on subject and size of final product. Best thing is if you can build a good relationship with your chosen printer. They will delighted to help and give you hints and tips I am sure.Peter
-
Warren, as Dave has already said it comes down to a lot of different factors so you would be best speaking to who ever you use for your digital prints as they will be able to guide you far better, most print shops will accept artwork in a number of different formats and most graphics packages will allow you to either save or export as various file types so you don’t really need to be using something like photoshop at all. .eps is a common file format for print shops to request because it is dual platform so any artwork you send as an .eps will open on either a PC or Mac platform.
What the graphic is needed for is also a consideration because you wouldn’t print something like a billboard which is going to be viewed from some distance away at the same resolution as say a small window sticker that was going to be seen from close up. Sometimes you may need to add a bleed to your graphic to ensure you don’t end up with a white edge and sometimes you don’t. -
Hi Guys
Thanks for the responses
To clear this up a bit, I know about file types and the like and a bit about resolutions.
The questions I was meaning is more of a design issue and how to start a design for a large graphic.
For example, a CMYK graphic for a full side of a Transit van, the graphic cannot be A4 size at 72dpi, it might need to be at least 25% of the full size and at 300dpi (for example) if I am taking the photograph which will need to be printed, what resolution must the picture be? If I take a picture that is too small and scale it up to 20x the original size it will look sh1t.
So I hope that clears it up, if I get a job where I need to put a large picture of their product on the entire side of their Transit…….where do I begin (or like wise if I have to design something from scratch..where do I start) page size, minimum picture size etc etc…
Hope that helps
Cheers
Warren
-
Warren
For big images and high quality you have to buy the more expensive artwork. The old saying " you only get what you pay for" applies in signmaking more-so than any other industry.
I get highly frustrated when a shopfitter or customer comes to me with their artwork for a shop for example that they spending £250,000.00 or more in doing up and give me a crappy picture that cost them £50.00 and expect me to make it look fabulous.
For a job that the budget will support we only use Corbis or Alamy images. Sometime this can mean spending anything up to £7500.00 or more on artwork but if it is of high quality then the finish product it is worth it.For job such as Wraps etc you should be able to get images dreamstime, stockimages etc that will do the job for a few quid.
It was mentioned on the site a few weeks back about Photzoom Pro 2, this is a fabulous piece of kit and can make many bad quality photos a lot better.
As for printing i usually will only "blow up" artwork by a maxium of 100% so if creating a jpeg or eps file of an image for a 3000mm x 5000mm image or print i will create a file as above at 1500mm x 2500mm. this stops a lot of distortion around text etc and still leaves it a manageable file size. on a direct image i.e photo print i will use Photzoom Pro 2 to increase the image to approx 1/2 the size then expand in my final RIP.
I’m from Northern Ireland and we do most things ass about face but it works well for us.
Some of the shop’s etc we do you can see in the portfolio forum. i will post better closeups of images to show better quality images when i get a chanceIan
-
Hi Ian
Cheers for that, that makes a lot of sense and is what I was wondering.
Any other hints and tips will be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Warren
-
To get a better understanding you need to know a few basics first. Its rather simple but you will have to ask these questions to your digital printer you are outsourcing to. I noticed several times that you are referring to the image size in DPI, image size is measured in PPI (Pixels per inch) and the print size is the DPI (normally 360dpi, 720dpi, 1440dpi and 2880dpi). Theres a great link here: http://photo.net/learn/resize/ about these properties.
Generally as a rule of thumb I use for myself, if its a large tractor trailer anything over 100-125ppi in Photoshop is overkill and will most likely not be able to save to any other format other than .PSB for a Large Photoshop File which if I am not mistaken isn’t an acceptable file format for most RIP software titles.
Vehicles with fine detail such as small text and photographs I will usually keep the PPI higher than 125ppi but under 200ppi. We have printed small sections of wraps we did for testing purposes and laid them side by side at different PPI’s printed @ 720 and anything over 200ppi had no noticeable difference.
Keep in mind, when you are building these files, they are going to get extremely large at high PPI’s so you are going to need some temporary storage for the Photoshop scratch disks (temp storage) and a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM (Creative Suite needs a minimum of 1 gig) but once you build a file @ high PPI you are going to know why I said minimum of 2.
-
warren
quote :what resolution must the picture be? If I take a picturethe most you have to start with 6m will be ok .
if the picture is sharp and well exposed you will be able to do more with it
you will be surprised how well a a4 image at 250 to 300 dpi will blow up.chris
-
Thanks for the reply’s
Show’s there is a lot more to printing large graphics than simply buying a printer.
My back ground is Flexographic printing for the packaging industry so never dealt with large graphics only small ones, always worked with dpi as we printed with dots and not pixels.
I got a lot to learn but look forward to it.
Thanks guys
Warren
-
quote Dave Harrison:Warren don’t mean to sound negative but it all depends on who’s doing your printing ! So if you’re not sure best ask them.I normally send my stuff as .eps at 300dpi at 50% or 25% of full size depends on what it is and files sizes etc, make sure colour modes are set to cmyk.
If you are using a vector based package for creating graphics make sure all type is converted to outline !
I hope thats a little help, others on here that run large format printers might be able to give you a better idea !
Now I got a really sarcastic reply from Ali Osman when I mentioned this in an earlier thread:
http://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.p … resolutionAli must be one hell of a busy guy or he just isn’t interested in helping people, so why bother to post at all if all he can manage is snide comments?
Log in to reply.