Tips & Info 2

More helpful reminders:

Color mapping should be consistent and correct. Spot colors should not be defined as separated unless that is your intent. Be cautious of embedding photos in Adobe software, the file size can grow to be huge. Linked photos allow us to make adjustments if needed. Layered files for output should be avoided whenever possible.

Page margins should be no less than .25", in book work no less than .375". This applies to matter that should not be trimmed off such as type. In the case of a bleed photo or a background color element, the bleed allowance outside the page size is .125", no more - no less than .062". Design your projects as finish size, please do not design a small page on a larger one adding your own printer's marks or instructions. Similarly, page spreads should not be done on a single double sized page. The use of page spread crossovers should be avoided or done with great care and limited use.

Black or dark type should usually be set to overprint a lighter underlying color. An exception is if the type is quite large and an overprint transition might be visible. Be cautious when designing with large color blends. Visible banding may be noticeable at high resolution output. If you must create a large blend avoid using the blend feature of QuarkXPress, A PhotoShop blend will generally produce better results.

Always print out color separated prints on your printer or to a test pdf. Composite color printouts do not show potential output separation issues that you did not intend. File submission is incomplete without some form of visual aid. Paper printouts are best, a view pdf or fax is sometimes sufficient. The visual aid should be from a final file, if possible, rather than an earlier version.

If you desire to create pdf files for output, all of the above suggestions and cautions still apply. We can perform some limited editing of pdf files, but doing so is often difficult.