Submitting Digital Artwork

1. Hard Copy

You should ALWAYS include a paper copy of your artwork with a job, even it you are providing artwork on disk. This is so we know what the job should look like. If you do not provide a hard copy sample, we cannot be held responsible for line ending or pagination changes that may occur. For black & white artwork, the ideal method is to print the artwork on a laser printer with a dpi (dots per inch) rating of at least 600dpi). For full color printing, we prefer disk-based artwork for all runs of more than 100 sheets of the same image, as copying inkjet originals can result in blurred copies.

2. Good Software

The average off-the-shelf $20-40 software available for the PC and Macintosh is NOT suitable for high-quality artwork production, although there are occasions where we can get by with artwork provided in such formats. Our preferred artwork format is the Adobe Acrobat PDF format, with all the fonts embedded and the artwork uncompressed if possible. Failing this, we prefer files in the following formats:

In all the above cases, you should ensure that you include ALL the fonts and images that were used in the creation of your document.

3. Resolution

For bitmap images such as photographs and other scanned artwork, the resolution must be at least 300dpi at the size of reproduction. It should be 1200dpi for black-&-white line art (such as an ink sketch).

If you wish to reproduce a 3-inch image at a size of 6-inches, you must scan the image at twice the resolution (6÷3=2), as an example.

4. Color & Black Text

When you create a file in Microsoft software, it often applies a color called ‘Auto’. This will not print correctly through our platemaker. Before you send your files to us, ensure that any black text is actually set to the software’s default ‘Black’, otherwise there may be additional artwork handling charges as we will have to do this for you. In MS Publisher, it is often easier to edit the Color Scheme and change the settings there than by doing it manually, especially in a larger document.

Last Update: May 2004