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Written by Tom Cripps
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Friday, 06 August 2010 09:38 |
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Many people who want items printed with us find it hard to tell us exactly what they want, as the terms used by printers are full of jargon (i have found this out first hand since i have started at Hot Sand!) and as i find myself in the same boat, i decided to learn some of these terms, mainly so i know what Sam is on about when she asks me to do some print work! but also so that i could write this article, and show you a few of the terms commonly used, and what they mean.
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When an image, text or other item runs to the edge of the page, past the trim line, it will 'bleed' or extend off the edge
of the page. It is therefore necessary to include an extra 'overun' around your artwork to ensure that the print reaches
the edge.
For example, a piece of work that has a green background will need this green to extend 3mm past the edge of
the page to ensure that, when printed, the colour would be visible all the way to the edge of the piece.
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Resolution is usually measured in dpi, or dots per inch. Every printed image is made up of hundreds of dots, or pixels,
and higher amounts of these dots result in a cleaner, clearer, and more detailed image.
The required resolution for images that go to print is 300 dpi, this ensures that the final printed result does not get
pixelated or blurred.
It is not easy to increase the dpi of an image without reducing its size, so it is always best to start with an image of the
highest quality you can, and reduce it to the optimal resolution.
(The required resolution for screen use incidentally is much lower, at 72dpi, so any web work should be reduced
to this level before publication on a site.)
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Crop marks can be added to PDF final copies of documents before they are sent to print. These are marks that the
printer uses to ensure that the job is cut and trimmed to the right size. They could be described as a set of guidelines
for the printer so they know where the edge of the page is.
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This is a term that simply describes artwork that has its pages laid out side by side. This can be helpful for example
when running a single image across two or more pages.
I hope you have found this article useful, i hope to explain some more terms in the future!
Tom
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