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Pro Printer talk

Started by spinner, July 11, 2011, 06:38:08 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

spinner

I was asked to put together a calendar for an Arts group I belong to (I may have even volunteered). The printer wanted it in PDF format. The calendar pages are to come out CD case sized. I dutifully copied, pasted, tweaked etc. and put together a 13 month calendar and cover pages. Sent it off to the Secretary who forwarded it to the Printer. Now I'm being asked to add 'bleed' and 'trim' lines. I have no experience in this and was wondering if any of the ladies or gents on here could point me to a web site that might explain all this to me in layman's terms.
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Ol' blue eyes

http://ddsdigita4.wix.com/ddsdigital
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spin498/

Beaux Reflets

#1
It is all about layout of pages so that they have continuity - Bleed and trim lines are guides for the printer / machine set up - Bleed governs the picture to the edge of the page so that the image does not lap onto the next page sheet or fall short leaving unprinted area where it is not desired - Trim lines (normally seen as thin crossed hairlines / corner of pages indicating where trim blade falls) are used to set where the cuts trimming will take place to afford continuity of page, book, calender size etc.

You may well find a calender template in software you have or on the Internet that will automatically place the trim line and bleed settings when you create the .pdf files. (I have a booklet publishing software package that does it for me that came with a package I bought moons ago and I guess any "publishing software"will provide what you need)

PS. Ensure the dpi is correct for the images you save onto the .pdf file, normally 300 dpi; otherwise the piccies will look pixelated if set to monitor screen 72 dpi  ;)
:beer: Andy

"Light anchors things in place and gives perspective meaning."

The choices we make are rooted in reflection.

http://beauxreflets.blogspot.com/

Jonathan

Cut out the secretary - ask the printer what they need.

Finding a template online can help but if this printer needs 3mm bleed  and 4mm quiet zone in printer's pairs and your template has 6mm in facing pairs it's going to end badly.
It's Guest's round

spinner

Quote from: Jonathan on July 11, 2011, 08:28:14 PM
Cut out the secretary - ask the printer what they need.

Finding a template online can help but if this printer needs 3mm bleed  and 4mm quiet zone in printer's pairs and your template has 6mm in facing pairs it's going to end badly.

See, that's what I was afraid of. You might as well be talking Martian to me. If I understand this correctly, if I needed a card, say 5" x 4.5" I needed to make the image 5and 1/8th (she said a 1/8th bleed) x 4.5 and 1/8th with the trim lines 1/8th inside the image?
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Ol' blue eyes

http://ddsdigita4.wix.com/ddsdigital
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spin498/

spinner

Quote from: beauxreflets on July 11, 2011, 07:59:34 PM
It is all about layout of pages so that they have continuity - Bleed and trim lines are guides for the printer / machine set up - Bleed governs the picture to the edge of the page so that the image does not lap onto the next page sheet or fall short leaving unprinted area where it is not desired - Trim lines (normally seen as thin crossed hairlines / corner of pages indicating where trim blade falls) are used to set where the cuts trimming will take place to afford continuity of page, book, calender size etc.

You may well find a calender template in software you have or on the Internet that will automatically place the trim line and bleed settings when you create the .pdf files. (I have a booklet publishing software package that does it for me that came with a package I bought moons ago and I guess any "publishing software"will provide what you need)

PS. Ensure the dpi is correct for the images you save onto the .pdf file, normally 300 dpi; otherwise the piccies will look pixelated if set to monitor screen 72 dpi  ;)

I did get the templates off the internet, if there were trim lines I didn't notice them, I'll have a look again. I've already been through the 300 dpi thing with my own prints.
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Ol' blue eyes

http://ddsdigita4.wix.com/ddsdigital
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spin498/

Oldboy

Quote from: spinner on July 11, 2011, 06:38:08 PM
I was asked to put together a calendar for an Arts group I belong to (I may have even volunteered). The printer wanted it in PDF format. The calendar pages are to come out CD case sized. I dutifully copied, pasted, tweaked etc. and put together a 13 month calendar and cover pages. Sent it off to the Secretary who forwarded it to the Printer. Now I'm being asked to add 'bleed' and 'trim' lines. I have no experience in this and was wondering if any of the ladies or gents on here could point me to a web site that might explain all this to me in layman's terms.

Get a copy of Fine Print and it will set it up for you.  :tup:

As for bleed, if you wanted to print a A3 poster then you would use A3+ for printing making the image slightly larger than A3. Once printed it would be trimmed to A3 using the trim lines, which are printed in the A3+ area and mark where to make the cuts. Once cut the A3 print would have no white edges, as the printed image would cover the whole page.  ;D

spinner

Quote from: Oldboy on July 11, 2011, 10:05:18 PM
Quote from: spinner on July 11, 2011, 06:38:08 PM
I was asked to put together a calendar for an Arts group I belong to (I may have even volunteered). The printer wanted it in PDF format. The calendar pages are to come out CD case sized. I dutifully copied, pasted, tweaked etc. and put together a 13 month calendar and cover pages. Sent it off to the Secretary who forwarded it to the Printer. Now I'm being asked to add 'bleed' and 'trim' lines. I have no experience in this and was wondering if any of the ladies or gents on here could point me to a web site that might explain all this to me in layman's terms.

Get a copy of Fine Print and it will set it up for you.  :tup:

As for bleed, if you wanted to print a A3 poster then you would use A3+ for printing making the image slightly larger than A3. Once printed it would be trimmed to A3 using the trim lines, which are printed in the A3+ area and mark where to make the cuts. Once cut the A3 print would have no white edges, as the printed image would cover the whole page.  ;D

I'm not doing the printing OB, they've hired a pro, I just did the set up as a favour. How much is Fine Print then?
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Ol' blue eyes

http://ddsdigita4.wix.com/ddsdigital
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spin498/

spinner

I found a tutorial online for doing it in Photoshop.

http://www.planetphotoshop.com/bleeds-and-crop-marks-from-photoshop.html

The information Highway is grand.  ;D
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Ol' blue eyes

http://ddsdigita4.wix.com/ddsdigital
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spin498/

Jonathan

Quote from: spinner on July 11, 2011, 08:43:42 PM
Quote from: Jonathan on July 11, 2011, 08:28:14 PM
Cut out the secretary - ask the printer what they need.

Finding a template online can help but if this printer needs 3mm bleed  and 4mm quiet zone in printer's pairs and your template has 6mm in facing pairs it's going to end badly.

See, that's what I was afraid of. You might as well be talking Martian to me. If I understand this correctly, if I needed a card, say 5" x 4.5" I needed to make the image 5and 1/8th (she said a 1/8th bleed) x 4.5 and 1/8th with the trim lines 1/8th inside the image?

You'd PROBABLY need to make it 5 1/4" - bleed lines are usually quoted all round so you'd want 1/8 on either side.  Which kind of underlines the point about asking ;)  Any decent printer should be able to supply a precise file spec or a template.

BTW I only know one printer that would quote dimensions in inches and they are old old school (as in, they use hand operated presses and the local museum runs tours of their prints shop).  Much as I hate them millimetres work much better for things like this.
It's Guest's round

spinner

I have been dealing with the printer directly now, over the last few days. I have certainly learned a lot about this, way more than I wanted to. Had I known what's involved I may not have volunteered to do it. Jonathan I think it's being done in Imperial measure because the packaging we're using is American and it's sized in inches. The printer is a lady, so I wouldn't presume to ask her how old she is. :legit:

I've given my arts group people 3 options on how to proceed and 4 days to think it over as I'm going on a mini holiday tomorrow. Start fresh on Monday, right now I'm a bit miffed as I'm clearly in over my head.  :(
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Ol' blue eyes

http://ddsdigita4.wix.com/ddsdigital
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spin498/

Oldboy

#10
Quote from: spinner on July 11, 2011, 11:19:48 PM
Quote from: Oldboy on July 11, 2011, 10:05:18 PM
Quote from: spinner on July 11, 2011, 06:38:08 PM
I was asked to put together a calendar for an Arts group I belong to (I may have even volunteered). The printer wanted it in PDF format. The calendar pages are to come out CD case sized. I dutifully copied, pasted, tweaked etc. and put together a 13 month calendar and cover pages. Sent it off to the Secretary who forwarded it to the Printer. Now I'm being asked to add 'bleed' and 'trim' lines. I have no experience in this and was wondering if any of the ladies or gents on here could point me to a web site that might explain all this to me in layman's terms.

Get a copy of Fine Print and it will set it up for you.  :tup:

As for bleed, if you wanted to print a A3 poster then you would use A3+ for printing making the image slightly larger than A3. Once printed it would be trimmed to A3 using the trim lines, which are printed in the A3+ area and mark where to make the cuts. Once cut the A3 print would have no white edges, as the printed image would cover the whole page.  ;D

I'm not doing the printing OB, they've hired a pro, I just did the set up as a favour. How much is Fine Print then?

It sounds more complicated than it actually is. I've used FindPrint, CorelDraw, Microsoft's Word and QuarkExpress for page layout. With QuarkExpress you have to workout how the finished job will look before constructing the page layout. With FinePrint, you assemble the pages required and the let it do all the layout for you. It works out how to print the document as a complete booklet without you working out how it's done.  ;D

Microsoft had a program called Publisher, which was quite good but they drop it, and I think the latest copy of Word does the same thing.

Jonathan

Quote from: spinner on July 13, 2011, 05:00:07 PM
Jonathan I think it's being done in Imperial measure because the packaging we're using is American and it's sized in inches.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten you were in the colonies.

It's actually not that bad when you get your head round it.  There's some useful information here - http://www.alocalprinter.com/uk/supplying-artwork/ though I'll stress that this is one particular printer.  Your own printer can supply the numbers they want.
It's Guest's round

spinner

Jonathan, it's helpful. It's at least an explanation of what a printer expects. I wish the printer we are using had supplied this to our group secretary or if she did, I wish the secretary had forward it to me. The bottom line appears to be, I have to start over. It also appears that CS5 despite it's "Professional" standard doesn't have an easy way to do this.
I followed this link on Adobe's Help pages "http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-7799a.html" only to discover it won't save the marks to the file. Am I missing something? Do pros print a copy and submit it to the printer along with a tiff or eps?
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Ol' blue eyes

http://ddsdigita4.wix.com/ddsdigital
https://www.flickr.com/photos/spin498/

Jonathan

>> Do pros print a copy and submit it to the printer along with a tiff or eps?

Not really.

What the printer is asking you to do is lay the page out for them.  That's generally not the job of a photographer - it's the job of a graphic designer and so they would usually use InDesign instead of Photoshop.  InDesign is built to do this kind of stuff and of course it can do all the crops marks, registrations and separations etc you want.

Photoshop can be made to do basic page layout but it's not ideal for it.  If I had a printer that wanted crop lines then I'd normally create a layered PSD with the crops marked on a separate layer with clear instructions to turn that layer off before printing.  Or I'd use InDesign (though I only have an old version and hate using it).

But most often I'd send them either a layered PSD or flattened jpeg of art with bleed and expect a PDF proof back showing crop marks etc.  I'd want them to do the conversion for their printers since they know them better than I do.
It's Guest's round

picsfor

InDesign - that's the way forward.

I believe you can download a copy for trial, and if i remember, you help out or study at a local college, which means you can get a copy at a substantially reduced price.
It's easy to get the hang of, but much harder to actually master to a pro level. But that's only because your document is processed in layers, as is your picture in photoshop.

EPS is a native file format, and it really does make life easy.


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